Teen Charged With Child Porn After Tweeting Nude Pictures of Herself
A 16-year-old girl was charged with distributing child pornography after she posted nude pictures of herself to Twitter in January.
The teenager posted the photos on or around January 30. Eventually, word spread to a school resource officer, who contacted the girl and her mother.
Police in James City County, Virginia later confiscated the phone and charged the girl with one count of distributing child pornography.
"It's not just friends that see what they post but also strangers and everyone else out there," Stephanie Williams-Ortery, a spokeswoman for the James City County Police Department, told WAVY.com. "You have no idea who's out there watching. You never know who's going to see what you post."
And it's not just the girl who could end up in trouble; her underage friends might be charged for forwarding the pictures.
"I would hope that they would not then forward it on to their friends because then they become guilty also of distribution of child pornography, whether they know that or not," Williams-Ortery said.
If convicted, the girl will mostly likely have to attend a court-mandated sexting education program and will avoid having to register as a sex offender. There is a chance, however, that she could be sent to jail (the mandatory minimum in the U.S. for distributing child pornography is five years).
This is the second high profile sexting case involving teens this year. In January, a Canadian girl was convicted on child pornography charges after "sexting" nude photographs of her boyfriend's ex-girlfriend.
