Jacon Ellis sentenced using a carriage service to solicit child pornography material

A man tricked a teen boy playing online games on Xbox into sending him sexually explicit videos before threatening to upload them to social media if he didn’t send him more.

Two young teens have been left traumatised after a man threatened to upload on social media a sexually explicit video and images he tricked one of the boys into sending him, if he didn’t do what he said.

Jacob Ellis, 23, was sentenced in Wagga District Court on September 29, after he posed as a teenage girl to get a boy to send him sexually explicit images and videos of himself.

Police found the Turvey Park resident, who pleaded guilty to using a carriage service to solicit child pornography material, using a carriage service to cause child pornography and a count of using a carriage service to transmit child pornography, operated eight different social media accounts and four different email addresses to talk to people online.

Jacob Ellis threatened a teenager online, forcing him to send sexually explicit images. Picture: Facebook

The court heard the offences first occurred in 2018, when Ellis began communicating with the teenage boys as himself at first, then introducing them to fake female accounts under the aliases of ‘Jessica’ and ‘Kaitlyn’.

Ellis began communicating with the teens via a headset while playing Xbox games and also messaged the teens on social media platforms Instagram and Facebook Messenger.

He introduced the teens to “his friends” Kaitlyn and Jessica and the “girls” then added the teens on Facebook and began messaging them, the court heard.

At various times between January 2018 and January 2019, Ellis sent messages to one of the teens demanding he be on Xbox at certain times and send him sexually explicit content.

Ellis started making threats, posing as a computer hacker and sent the teen personal information to prove it.

Then using the online identity of ‘Jessica’, Ellis demanded the teen communicate with her or “she would f**k him up as she was also a computer hacker.”

Again, under the alias of ‘Kaitlyn’, Ellis began messaging one of the teens, sending threatening messages over Instagram.

“Obey or suffer, ignore me and I’ll show you the shit you send girls on Snapchat, with enough photos people will see it’s clearly you even when your face isn’t shown,” he wrote pretending to be ‘Kaitlin’. “This is what happens when you don’t obey.”

Court documents state Ellis also made multiple offers for cash and rewards in exchange for sexually explicit videos and photographs, offering one teen $2500 for nude photographs.

As a result of the threatening messages, one of the teens sent a number of images of himself undressed and a video to ‘Kaitlyn’ performing oral sex on a different friend.

Jacob Ellis leaves Wagga police station after mandatory reporting.

Ellis then sent the video on to the other teenage victim before Ellis was arrested on January 18, 2019, when police searched his Turvey Park home and seized 14 electronic devices.

In a victim impact statement, the victims said they no longer trust people and are scared to use their real names online, in case the offender comes back to do it again.

Ellis’s defence lawyer, Christine Mendes, told the court “in the seriousness of the conduct derives more from the deceptive and manipulative nature of his behaviour rather than from the nature and character of the child abuse material.”

However, Judge Lerve told the court: “I am prepared to find that initially the video was obtained for the offender’s personal use but as part of the cyberbullying, the offender transmitted that offence.

“There was a degree of planning and deception particularly with the use of the Kaitlyn identity, there was a risk of someone seeing it as it was transmitted.

“The victims must live with the knowledge that the files depicting them are liable to surface at any time.”

The Crown prosecutor said the offender exploited the victim’s vulnerabilities.

“Both victims were reluctant to go to school or to talk to anyone they knew, with their physical and mental health deteriorated,” the prosecutor said.

“Both suffer from anxiety, have lost friends and feel humiliated and tricked.”

Judge Gordon Lerve told the court: “The victim is described as being very under the offender’s control, the facts indicate a very serious example of using a carriage service to harass, menace or offend.

“There was no cruelty or physical harm, there was however what has become known as cyberbullying.”

Ellis was sentenced to three years imprisonment which was suspended upon entering a recognizance to be of good behaviour for four years.

He was also ordered to pay the sum of $2000.