Courtesy of Darren Decker/Miss Teen USAJared Abrahams, the now 20-year-old who ran a "sextortion" scam by hacking into the computers of several young women, including Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf, will spend 18 months in federal prison.
In November, Abrahams pleaded guilty to three counts of extortion and one count of unauthorized access of a computer. The Temecula, Calif., resident was sentenced in Orange County Monday.
Abrahams illegally hacked into the laptops of several young women in the U.S. and abroad, then took control of their webcams in order to film and photograph them while they undressed, according to the FBI. The college freshman was a high school classmate of Wolf, 19, who was crowned in August 2013. Abrahams threatened to post the images to the victim's social media accounts unless the women provided additional nude photos/videos or obeyed his commands during a five-minute Skype session.
Wolf alerted the authorities in March 2013, and in September of that year, she spoke about the experience on NBC's Today. "This happened to me when I was a normal girl in high school and it can happen to anybody," she said. "I know some of the girls who were involved in the case didn't have the opportunity to talk to law enforcement and to get help," she added, "so it makes me feel really good that I was able to help them out, as well as other people who could be going through the same thing.
(E! and Today are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)