The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is trying to find out who posted explicit photos of several Gwinnett County high school girls over the weekend.
Posting the pictures could result in a 20-year prison sentence because the subjects are assumed to be under 18. Even people who forwarded the pictures — whether minors or adults — could face child porn distribution charges.
“Once someone sends it to someone else, a crime has been committed,” Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Sherry Lang said.
Officials shut down the photo postings, which included more than a dozen girls from area schools, including Peachtree Ridge, Shiloh, Parkview, Collins Hill, Duluth and Peachtree Ridge. The photos first appeared on Instagram, a photo-sharing site, and moved to the messaging site Twitter. Included were the girls’ names and the schools they attend.
“This kind of thing happens fairly regularly, more often than parents know,” Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter said.
Though the original pages may be gone, downloaded photos — in this case, a combination of selfies and posed shots — can cast a long shadow for people who assumed they would remain private.
“The problem is once these photos are out there they can show up anywhere,” said former DeKalb County District Attorney J. Tom Morgan, an expert on crimes involving young people. “We’ve seen pictures show up on Internet porn sites in other countries and there’s not a thing we can do about it.”
Though such cases are not uncommon, online chatter about the Gwinnett photos has been significant, Lang said.
The Instagram account was opened on Sunday.
“When I got up Monday three people had sent pics to my phone and they aren’t even in high school anymore,” said a recent Peachtree Ridge High School graduate, who is close friends with a girl whose nude photos were posted online without her approval.
“This is destroying her life,” said the friend, who wished to remain anonymous. “She’s not talking to anyone right now.”
Her friend said the Peachtree Ridge student took the photo for her former boyfriend, “thinking he wouldn’t distribute them.”
One parent, who reported the site to Gwinnett County police, said a photo of her daughter taken three years ago was among those distributed.
On Twitter, reaction among students ranged initially from ridicule to compassion. But by Tuesday afternoon, the tone had become considerably more empathetic.
Tweeted one Brookwood High sophomore: “This stuff isn’t funny anymore…. it’s bullying and I hope y’all get caught.”
Jorge Quintana, a spokesman for the Gwinnett County school system, said parents began expressing concern about photos on social media sites in early November. At that time, school resource officers contacted the GBI and the Gwinnett County Police Department. In mid-November, at least one school, Brookwood, sent parents a note reminding them of the potential dangers of social media.
Social media postings “would only be a school issue if it becomes a disruption in school that distracts from instruction,” Quintana said. “That’s when there’s the possibility of a school resource officer getting involved.”
Porter said he’s prosecuted minors for distributing child pornography before and won’t hesitate to do it again.
“I expect in this case we’ll see a mixture of adults and juveniles,” he said.
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