By The New York Times (World News) | Created at 2024-10-26 17:30:10 | Updated at 2024-10-26 19:27:01
2 hours ago
Europe|U.K. Man Who Posed as a Girl to Extort Teens Online Gets 20 Years in Prison
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/26/world/europe/catfish-northern-ireland-manslaughter.html
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The Northern Ireland resident sought explicit images from thousands of girls he had groomed and blackmailed, leading to the death of a 12-year-old girl in the United States.
Oct. 26, 2024, 1:25 p.m. ET
A 26-year-old man from Northern Ireland who pretended to be a teenage girl on the internet to target thousands of girls in a wide-reaching online pedophilia case and who was convicted of manslaughter in the death of a 12-year-old girl in the United States, was sentenced in Britain on Friday to at least 20 years in prison.
Alexander McCartney pleaded guilty to 185 charges of child sexual abuse crimes and blackmail. He had pleaded guilty to the manslaughter charge in March.
“This was one of the most depraved, distressing and prolific cases of child sexual abuse that we have ever seen in the public prosecution service,” said Catherine Kierans, the acting head of the Serious Crime Unit of the Northern Ireland Public Prosecution Service, during a news conference on Friday.
Pretending to be a teenage girl, Mr. McCartney, 26, lured his victims into a false sense of security. He urged them to send explicit photos or engage in sexual activity via a webcam or a cellphone and later blackmailed them, according to the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Mr. McCartney then spread those images and videos around the internet, they said.
Mr. McCartney groomed, manipulated and sexually abused his young victims, Detective Chief Superintendent Eamonn Corrigan said in a statement. Mr. McCartney started his deception of girls online from his childhood bedroom in Newry, a city in Northern Ireland, when he was in his late teens.
The Northern Irish police estimated that Mr. McCartney had about 3,500 victims in multiple countries.
