Making people aware of internet crimes against children in Oneida County

Social media and the internet in general can be beneficial. 

However, there’s a darker side that many people aren’t aware of and that was a large part of the message that Chad Wanta, a detective sergeant with the Oneida County Sheriff’s Office, intended to convey during a presentation for Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) at the Rhinelander High School auditorium on March 26.

“The ICAC Task Force is worldwide,” he told the audience of about 30 people at the beginning of the program. “It’s groups of law enforcement agencies that work specifically crimes involving children on the internet.”

There’s an array of different crimes that happen, Wanta said. 

“There’s people that send, receive, create and distribute what’s called child pornography,” he said. “There’s people that traffic children online and other things like that. They sexually exploit children on the internet.”

Wanta said in most cases, it’s a “reactive crime” for the sheriff’s office to combat. 

“We do have things in place to be proactive against these things,” he said. “It’s very difficult because of technology and the constant changes and advancements in technology and unfortunately, the bad guys always seem to be one step ahead of us.”

Those advancements in technology,Wanta said, include items such as technology companies making it more and more difficult “to get into and search” cell phones and other electronic devices during the course of an investigation. 

“It does make it very difficult for us,” he said.

Even so, Wanta said, the Oneida County Sheriff’s Office has “been very successful.”

“We have a sheriff who’s very passionate about the subject,” he said of Oneida County Sheriff Grady Hartman. “That’s why our task force was created. I was one of the initial people assigned to that task force.”

At nearly 25 years in law enforcement — 19 of it with the Oneida County Sheriff’s Office — Wanta said he “would be leaving soon and passing the torch to these fine people and others.”

He pointed to Kelly Moermond, a detective sergeant with the sheriff’s office and sheriff’s deputy Alyssa Knabenbauer, who were standing nearby.

“Our task force is growing because the crimes are growing and they’re getting more popular and they’re getting more heinous,” Wanta said. 

He, Moermond and Knabenbauer made another presentation to students earlier in the day. 

“We’re here tonight to make people aware of what’s going on because, quite frankly, when we do investigations and we talk to people, a lot of times, people aren’t even aware of these things, which is really, really sad in my opinion,” Wanta said. 

Before the presentation, he talked to The Lakeland Times about one of the primary items people need to be aware of regarding internet crimes against children and that’s something referred to as “sextortion.”

“It used to be kids and teenagers up to young adults would send out illicit pictures of themselves online to people they thought they knew or people they just befriended,” Wanta told the Times. “Those people would turn around and coerce them into sending money or more illicit photos or they would post those pictures all over the internet and to friends and family.”

If that wasn’t bad enough, it’s now developed, he said, into something worse. 

“There’s online groups that are basically being referred to as cults that are getting a hold of people’s explicit photos,” Wanta said. “When they get those explicit photos, they are threatening the person into doing self-mutilation, carving words or symbols onto their body. Doing harm to other people or to animals and their ultimate goal is to have those people commit suicide and they want this all done via livestream. It’s become a huge problem.”

He said the Federal Bureau of Investigation has placed the number of suicides caused by sextortion at around 30 but there were likely many more but they hadn’t been investigated more thoroughly.

During the course of the ICAC program on March 26, the stories shared included those of Jordan DeMay, a 17 year-old from marquette, Michigan who committed suicide attributed to sextortion on March 25, 2022; so far, two men from Nigeria have been convicted in connection to that sextortion scheme. 

Wednesday, a second U.S. resident pleaded guilty to money laundering for the Nigerian sextortionists.

One other story shared was that of Brayden Bohn, 15, Kronenwetter, who committed suicide on March 5 of this year. 

His death was also attributed to sextortion.

Wanta said there have been at least six cases of sextortion the Oneida County Sheriff’s Office has investigated in recent years. 

“Nobody was hurt, nobody was killed,” he said. “We were able to make contact with the victims. They had gone to their parents and advised them what was going on and everything was fine on that end but we’re not immune to it here. It is happening and getting more and more prevalent.”

Wanta, as he did later in the presentation, said “people aren’t aware of what’s going on.”

“They give their kids cell phones and tell them to go away and this happens,” he said. “Kids are exchanging pictures in school ... there’s dares, there’s bets. They think they’re cool and want to send pictures of their private parts with each other and then one or the other gets mad at them and they send it out on the internet and the bad guys get a hold of it and they use it to exploit the children.”

One other element law enforcement is having to contend with, Wanta said, is artificial intelligence or AI. 

“It’s become a huge issue because the bad guys can use a simple AI application, use a picture of someone who’s fully clothed off of Facebook, put the picture in an app and the person will be naked,” he said. “That picture then gets sent to the person and the bad guys can exploit them or sexploit them.”

Wanta said the presentation for the students was focused on them “being careful and reporting things.”

“Tonight’s presentation was to make parents more aware of this,” he said. “They need to monitor more what their kids are doing or at the minimum, have conversations with their kids about internet security.”

Hartman told the Times a goal had been set “years back” to try and get into the internet.

“It was kind of the wild west,” he said. “I wanted to get people assigned to it not only to get complaints as they come in but be more proactive and try to get the people that are attempting to violate our children. It’s a good, bipartisan issue that most everyone agrees on that we want to protect our kids against those people who are trying to sexually assault them.” 

Hartman said Oneida County is “probably” the leader in the state in conducting sting operations and making “proactive arrests.”

“We got an award for ICAC Team of the Year in 2020,” he said. “We haven’t slowed down since then.”

Brian Jopek may be reached via email at [email protected].