Latest news with #ShieldAct
San Francisco Chronicle
10-05-2025
- San Francisco Chronicle
Four arrested, accused of sextortion scheme that led to Bay Area teen's suicide
Four members of a criminal group in the African nation of Côte d'Ivoire have been arrested on suspicion of running a sextortion scheme that resulted in a 17-year-old Morgan Hill student killing himself in 2022 after being targeted by the group, federal authorities said. The student, Ryan Last, died by suicide in February 2022, hours after being blackmailed by a person pretending to be a 20-year-old woman who threatened to post intimate photos of him online. If you need help • If you, your child or someone you know is being exploited via sextortion, contact your local FBI field office, call 800-225-5324, or report it online at the Internet Crime Complaint Center. • If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, call the free 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing '988' 24 hours a day or text 'HOME' to 741741 to reach a crisis counselor anytime. Ryan was just one of thousands of people authorities said the group targeted, including other minors, in Canada, the United States, and several European countries. Ryan's extortioners demanded $5,000 not to publish a photo he'd sent them, his mother told CNN months after his death. When Ryan told them he couldn't pay the full amount, they reduced the demand to $150. After he paid that, however, they demanded more and more, according to the CNN story. The FBI investigated the case along with the San Jose Police Department, the U.S. Embassy in Abidjan, Meta and Côte d'Ivoire's Anti-Terrorist Operational Intelligence Center, identifying the alleged blackmailer as Alfred Kassi. He was arrested April 29 by Ivorian police in his home country, according to a Department of Justice news release. At the time of his arrest, Kassi allegedly still had the sextortion messages he sent to Ryan on his phone. Besides Kassi, authorities arrested three other people they said helped him launder sextortion payments he received from Ryan and other victims. One, Oumarou Ouedraogo, was arrested by Ivorian law enforcement on April 25, days before Kassi's arrest. Ivorian authorities arrested two other men, Moussa Diaby and Oumar Cisse, who federal authorities said admitted to being part of Kassi's sextortion network. A fifth person, Jonathan Kassi (unrelated to Alfred Kassi), was arrested in the U.S. in December 2022 and convicted in 2023 in a California State Court and sentenced to 18 months in jail. Because the government of Côte d'Ivoire does not extradite its own citizens, the defendants will be prosecuted in their own country under Ivorian cybercrime statutes, according to the Justice Department. California criminalized the sharing of private sexual images of a person without consent in 2013. Congressional lawmakers introduced legislation in February to make such behavior a federal crime. The legislation, known as the Shield Act, would establish federal criminal liability for people who share, or threaten to share, sexually explicit or nude images without their owner's consent and eliminate gaps in existing law that prevent prosecutors from holding those who share explicit images of children accountable. 'Those who have had their digital privacy violated shouldn't have to fear that their abusers will go unpunished,' said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who co-sponsored the bill. 'Our legislation will help ensure criminals who share private images of others online, including explicit photos of children, are held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.'
Fox News
26-03-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Blue state leader sounds alarm about ‘perfect storm' of Dem immigration policies decimating public safety
Massachusetts state Sen. Ryan Fattman, a Republican, is sounding the alarm about the impact of a "perfect storm" of Democratic policies he says are decimating public safety while simultaneously driving up the cost of living. One policy – instituted by the 2017 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling Lunn vs. Commonwealth – bars local and state law enforcement agencies from assisting with immigration enforcement. Under the ruling, law enforcement are also not allowed to honor ICE "detainer" requests, often forcing police departments and sheriffs' offices to release dangerous criminal illegals onto the streets without notifying ICE. This has led to ICE having to re-arrest several criminal illegals charged with such crimes as child rape and fentanyl trafficking after they were released by Massachusetts law enforcement agencies for bail as low as $500 or no bail at all. Fattman told Fox News Digital that these cases are not isolated but rather "are happening across the commonwealth." He also pointed to a Massachusetts "Right to Shelter" law, which has led to the creation of a vast network of migrant shelters that has cost the state upwards of $3 billion in taxpayer dollars since 2021. Whistleblowers have also called attention to "rampant abuse" of the shelter system by migrants, including instances of drug trafficking and a father repeatedly raping and even impregnating his teenage daughter. A public records request by the Boston Globe resulted in an over 3,000-page document detailing cases of rape, domestic violence, assault and other crimes being perpetuated by illegals living in the state-funded shelter system. "You have a perfect storm that's happening in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts," said Fattman. "We have 3,000 pages of public safety incidents, 3 billion plus dollars spent on the taxpayers' dime, and cities and towns across the commonwealth that are literally going broke." He placed the onus for the state of the crisis on Massachusetts Democratic Gov. Maura Healey, as well as the Democratic majority legislature. "Ninety-nine percent of political asylum cases in our immigration courts get rejected," he said. "So, the premise that these individuals will come to the commonwealth, and many of whom are good people, and that they might be able to work here, make lives here, it's not true. So, we have spent $3 billion on 99% of people who are never going to be legal residents of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We have lit the money on fire, and that is wrong." "This is insanity, and it must change," he continued. "People are tired of this. They want safety for their children and their families. They want to be able to walk down the street and know that there's nothing bad that's going to happen to them, that they can work hard and get ahead. And that is not happening in the commonwealth." In efforts to curb the insanity, Fattman introduced a bill called the "Shield Act" that would essentially overturn the Lunn decision by authorizing local and state law enforcement agencies to work with ICE to ensure criminal illegal immigrants are kept off the streets. Though Massachusetts is a solid blue state, Fattman is optimistic that citizens are going to demand change from their leaders one way or another. "This is, I think, a situation that has become untenable politically for many people," he said, adding that the Lunn decision specifically says that the "legislature needs to create a law in order for this law to exist, that no law exists so, therefore, the ICE detainers don't have to be honored and the remedy is the legislature acting." "Massachusetts is viewed as a blue state, but there are large, large swaths of purple and red parts of the state and those places are just fed up," he went on. "They're fed up as individuals watching the headlines, seeing that their neighbors being assaulted, pregnant women are being injured at the hands of people who are not lawfully present in our state or country." "To add insult to injury, we have said, come here, we'll pay for you, for your food, for your education, for your healthcare, and for your shelter, and it's cost billions of dollars," he added. "We're getting to a critical mass where the pressure points are about at explosion."
