Many victims of a massive child ‘sextortion’ case with local roots have still not been identified, and the Jacksonville FBI is launching a national campaign to try to change that.
Lucas Chansler, of St. Johns County, pled guilty eight months ago to producing child pornography and is currently serving 105 years for that. 109 victims have been tied to Chansler so far, but court records show that his computer had the information of 350 young girls.
“We know there are more victims, we’re just trying to do what we can to identify them,” says FBI Special Agent Larry Meyer.
The FBI says Chansler ran an extortion scheme to produce child pornography. He would pose as a teen boy online, become familiar with teen girls, and then get them to expose themselves while on video. He would then use the video to extort more graphic images, according to court records, threatening to post the content online and send it to family and friends unless the victim sent more graphic images and videos.
Court records say Chansler had about 80,000 images and videos of child pornography. For the first time today, the FBI released the screen names Chansler used to communicate with his victims online.
Chansler has been tied to young teen victims in 26 states, three Canadian provinces and the UK. The victims were 12-17, dating back to 2005, so investigators say they would now be 19-25 years old.
Meyer says parents likely saw some noticeable warning signs in their children if they were victims.
“So many of his victims had a marked change in personality- dropping out from groups of friends, dropping out of sports, grades taking a nose dive, getting involved in drugs,” he says.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children calls Chansler's case "the largest 'sextortion' case prosecuted to date in the United States." If you were a victim or know someone who was, you're asked to contact the FBI.
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