Sexting Scandal at Colorado High School: Will Teens Face Child Pornography Charges?
A sexting scandal involving over 100 students at a local high school has rocked a small town in Colorado located about 115 miles south of Denver.
Officials say dozens teens at Cañon City High School were involved in a massive sexting ring where they took nude photos of themselves and shared the pictures with friends, reports The New York Times. Police have launched an investigation into the scandal, which could lead to felony charges against some of the kids accused of violating child pornography laws by possessing or sharing sexually explicit pics of underage students.
"It has come to the attention of the Cañon City School District that a number of our students have engaged in behavior where they take and pass along pictures of themselves that expose private parts of their bodies or their undergarments," school officials said in a statement on Facebook, according to CNN.
Charges could amount to a Class 3 felony if students took "a picture of themselves showing a naked private body part and sent it to another person ... received such a picture and forwarded it to another person, or ... received such a picture and retained possession of it over time," the Cañon City School District said.
Because members of the school football team are believed to be at the center of the sexting scandal, the team had to forfeit their final game of the season on Saturday.
Schools Superintendent George Welsh added some of the nude photos are even believed to have been taken on campus.
"We will be identifying people in the images," he said.
"We're haven't interviewed anybody yet. We're in the process of obtaining search warrants. We're in the process of coordinating forensic investigations of cell phones."
Apparently, the teens hid about 300-400 nude photos in "vault apps," which are typically disguised as a calculator or media player and cannot be unlocked without a password.
"When you go into it and you ... hold a certain button long enough, a prompt for password comes up. Once you enter that password, then any messages that have been sent from photo vault to photo vault start coming up," Welsh explained.
Some students have already been suspended.
Although the law bans all people from taking and sharing explicit photos of minors, District Attorney Tom LeDoux said said he would use his discretion in prosecuting those involved. He added a conviction could force a criminal to register as a sex offender.
"We take the implications of requiring to register someone as a sex offender very seriously, and we would only seek to have that application of the law to these circumstances if we felt that it was absolutely necessary," LeDoux said.
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