'Sextortion' victim Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf appeared on NBC's Today on Friday, Sept 27, saying she recognizes the name of her former high school classmate, Jared James Abrahams, who confessed to blackmailing her, but never talked to him when they went to school together.
"It's weird for me to be able to put a face to the person that did this to me and to know its someone I went to high school with," Wolf told Today.
Abrahams, 19, was arrested Thursday for allegedly taking nude images of the women using their own webcams, and then blackmailing them to send more explicit material. He faces a charge of extortion that could send him to federal prison for up to two years, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said.
The FBI investigation was sparked after Wolf alerted authorities in March to a change in her Facebook password and an alleged sextortion demand from a person authorities said they later identified as Abrahams.
"This person had been taking pictures of me in my room, changing clothes from putting on outfits, walking back and forth from the shower," Wolf recalled. Later, she received an anonymous email in which the sender claimed to have stolen images from the camera on her home computer.
"An FBI agent's affidavit, included in the complaint, contends that Abrahams used malicious software to remotely operate webcams to capture nude photos and videos of at least seven women as they changed clothes - some of whom he knew personally and others he found by hacking Facebook pages, " according to the Associated Press.
The agent alleged that Abrahams, when interviewed, acknowledged controlling 30 to 40 hacked computers and extorting some women.
Abrahams' attorney, Alan Eisner, told reporters outside of the federal courthouse Thursday that "the family wants to apologize for the consequences of his behavior to the families that were affected."
Wolf says she is now on a campaign to raise awareness about the risks that technology can expose users to.
Abrahams has been released on $50,000 bond, the FBI said. He must wear a GPS tracker and is prohibited from using a computer for anything other than academic work.
