A Forsyth County man will serve 28 years in prison after he pleaded guilty last week to producing child pornography, according to the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia.
Edward Okenica, 24, of Cumming, was arrested Aug. 14, 2019, for exploiting 100 young girls online, authorities said.
Okenica used Instagram and Snapchat to bribe dozens of girls to send him sexually explicit images and videos of themselves, as well as to perform “humiliating acts,” U.S. Attorney BJay Pak said in a Facebook post. He added that Okenica “bullied, threatened and extorted” the girls who refused to continue producing visuals for him.
“He threatened to share their videos online with the girls' friends and/or family, and in multiple cases did in fact carry out his threats,” Pak said. “If a girl blocked Okenica on Snapchat or Instagram, he frequently established new accounts to find the child and demand that she send him more sexually explicit photographs and videos.”
Of the 100 girls Okenica threatened, authorities said they identified about 36 victims in the U.S. and abroad. Some were as young as 12 years old, Pak said.
Okenica pleaded guilty to 11 counts of producing child pornography in March. He will serve 28 years behind bars, “followed by a lifetime of supervised release,” Pak’s statement said. Upon being released, Okenica will have to register as a sex offender.
“He is a sexual predator who exploited the vulnerability and fragility of his victims by relying on the relative anonymity of social media platforms. This case is a reminder that sextortion remains a huge threat to our youth and to their families, and parents need to remain vigilant to guard against it by monitoring their children’s social media activities," Pak said.
The Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations and the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office investigated the case.
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