Registered sex offender convicted of ‘sextortion’ of over 100 children

A man from Nevada was sentenced to 65 years in prisonfollowed by lifetime supervised release, for sextorting more than 100 children on Omegle, Snapchat, TikTok and Mega and distributing child sexual abuse material on dark web forums.

From 2018 to 2021, James Patrick Burns used several platforms to contact minors and coerce or threaten them into producing sexually explicit content, according to court documents presented at trial. Prosecutors called Burns the “most prolific creator” of illegal content on these forums in the years he was active.

Snap rolled out new features last month aimed at protecting teenage users from sextortion scams. Features include in-app warning messages when teens receive messages from users that others have blocked or reported, and automatic friend request blocks for accounts that have “a history of accessing Snapchat in locations frequently associated with fraudulent activity.”

Video chat service Omegle was regularly besieged by criticism that it enabled child sexual abuse before it was shut down in 2023. In late 2021, an 11-year-old girl filed a lawsuit against Omegleclaiming the matching system paired her with a man who sexually abused her.

In a statement announcing Omegle’s closure, founder Leif K-Brooks said operating the platform was “no longer sustainable, financially nor psychologically.”

“There can be no honest accounting of Omegle without acknowledging that some people have misused it, including to commit unspeakable heinous crimes,” K-Brooks wrote at the time.

The FBI noted a “huge increase” in online sextortion scams, especially those targeting children and minors. Perpetrators often threaten children or teenagers, claiming they will release sexually explicit photos of them unless they send money – or more explicit content. The scams “have resulted in an alarming number of deaths by suicide,” according to the FBI.

Burns, 55, was sentenced in March on eight counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, eight counts of coercion and enticement of a minor and one count of advertising, receiving, distributing and possessing child pornography. Burns was also convicted of committing certain crimes while he was a registered sex offender, which he was at the time the crimes occurred. In addition to the prison sentence, he will have to pay more than $100,000 in restitution and assessments.

Many of Burns’ victims have not yet been identified, according to a Department of Justice press release. Burns first came to the attention of authorities after a victim’s mother saw threats on her son’s phone and reported them to police, prosecutors said.