Midwest
Georgia and Alabama suspects make plea in sextortion scam that led to Michigan teen's suicide
This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
Five Americans have pleaded guilty to money laundering in connection with a Nigerian sextortion scheme that led to a Michigan teenager’s death by suicide.
Georgia residents Kendall Ormond London, 32; Brian Keith Coldmon, Jr., 30; Jarell Daivon Williams, 31; and Johnathan Demetrius Green, 32, as well as Dinsimore Guyton Robinson, 29, of Alabama, have pleaded guilty to using online payment systems to collect sextortion proceeds and send them to a Nigerian individual they referred to as “The Plug,” the Justice Department said in a press release.
Jordan DeMay, of Michigan, was 17 years old when Nigerian brothers Samuel Ogoshi, 22, and his brother, Samson Ogoshi, 20, posed as a woman on Instagram using a hacked account and struck up a conversation with the teenager.
The brothers ultimately used the account to blackmail the teenager into sending money and threaten him into sending more until he took his own life in March 2022.
MICHIGAN FOOTBALL PLAYER’S NIGERIAN SCAMMERS PAY PRICE FOR TEENS SEXTORTION SUICIDE
John DeMay is sounding the alarm about a crime called “sextortion” after his 17-year-old son, Jordan DeMay, died by suicide after becoming the victim of a sextortion scheme last year. (handout)
Federal officials extradited the Ogoshi brothers to the United States in 2024, and a judge ordered them to serve more than 17 years in prison and five years of supervised release for their roles in the sextortion scheme that led to DeMay’s death and targeted more than 100 other victims, as well.
“It’s another layer of justice.”
“It’s rewarding in a sense that our country and the FBI are taking this seriously and closing the gaps on each leg of this crime,” Jordan’s father, John DeMay, told Fox News Digital on Thursday in response to the five Americans who pled guilty to money laundering.
AFTER MICHIGAN TEEN’S SUICIDE, NIGERIAN BROTHERS PLEAD GUILTY TO PLANNING DEADLY SEXTORTION SCHEME
Nigerian brothers Samuel and Samson Ogoshi pleaded guilty for conspiring to extort minors on Wednesday. (Economic and Financial Crimes Commission)
Sextortion is a social media crime trend in which bad actors entice or solicit a minor to engage in sexual acts or send blackmail money, according to the FBI, which received more than 13,000 reports of online financial sextortion involving at least 12,600 victims between October 2021 and March 2023.
The Nigerian sextortionists in Jordan’s case targeted young men and boys while posing as romantic interests and coerced them into sending nude images. Once they sent those images, the sextortionists threatened the victims, saying they would expose those images if the victims did not send them money online.
MICHIGAN FAMILY SOUNDS ALARM ON SON’S ‘SEXTORTION’ SUICIDE AFTER ARRESTS OF 3 NIGERIAN MEN
For example, in Jordan’s case, on the same night the Ogoshis started communicating with him through Instagram, the teenager sent an explicit photo of himself to the account that he thought belonged to a woman.
The father of young Pennsylvania man who died by suicide after becoming the victim of a sextortion attempt helped lead the FBI to Nigerian suspects charged in the case. (FBI)
Samuel Ogoshi threatened to expose it and make it go “viral” online if Jordan did not immediately send money, prosecutors said. Jordan complied and sent the suspect money, but the crime only escalated from there as Samuel Ogoshi demanded more and more money from the 17-year-old.
The exchange went on for hours on a single night until Jordan told Samuel Ogoshi that he was going to kill himself.
NIGERIAN MEN TO FACE US JUSTICE IN SEXTORTION SCHEME THAT LED TO TEEN’S SUICIDE
“Good,” he wrote. “Do that fast. Or I’ll make you do it. I swear to God.”
Jordan Demay began chatting with someone he thought was a woman on Instagram under the username “dani.robertts.” (handout)
The Ogoshi brothers directed victims like Jordan to send the money to accounts on Apple Pay, Cash App and Zelle that belonged to the Georgia and Alabama money launderers, who would then keep about 20% of the funds, convert the remainder to bitcoin and send the bitcoin to “The Plug” in Nigeria. “The Plug” also kept a portion of the funds for himself and sent the rest to the sextortionists — in this case, the Ogoshi brothers.
DeMay noted that it is difficult to transfer American dollars directly to Nigerian currency, which is why scammers opt for bitcoin; bitcoin is also harder for officials to trace.
GROWING ‘SEXTORTION’ TREND TRICKS BOYS INTO SENDING EXPLICIT IMAGES THROUGH GAMING SITES, EXTORTED FOR MONEY
Acting U.S. Attorney Birge noted that the Americans who “profited from this awful, heartbreaking scheme” will now “face the consequences” of their actions.
John DeMay also said he would tell Jordan “every single day” if he had “a chance” that threats from the sextortionist were not the end of his life. (handout)
“The conspiracy offense is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. The court will decide the sentences upon consultation with federal sentencing guidelines and the individual circumstances,” Birge said.
“It’s still happening every day.”
DeMay has since turned his heartbreak into advocacy, traveling around the country and the world to not only educate Americans on what sextortion is and how to prevent children from falling victim to these scams, but also to promote federal legislation that aims to protect minors online.
“Unfortunately, there are still a lot of sextortion cases across the country,” he said.
The suspect in Jordan’s death, 20-year-old Samson Ogoshi, is one of three suspects from Lagos arrested earlier this month for allegedly hacking Instagram accounts and sexually extorting, or “sextorting,” more than 100 young men online. (handout)
The average age of sextortion victims is between 14 and 17 years old, the FBI said in a press release earlier this year, but the agency noted that any child can become a victim. Offenders of financially motivated sextortion typically originate from African and Southeast Asian countries, according to the FBI. The FBI also saw a 20% increase in sextortion incidents involving minors between October 2022 and March 2023.
Sextortion can lead to suicide and self-harm. Between October 2021 and March 2023, the majority of online financial extortion victims were boys. These reports involved at least 20 suicides, the FBI said.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has created a free service called “Take it Down,” which is meant to help victims of sextortion erase explicit images of victims or get bad actors to stop sharing them online. The tool can be accessed at https://takeitdown.ncmec.org.
DeMay is a proponent of the bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which received House and Senate support last year but ultimately did not make it to the House floor for voting during a lame-duck session. Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., are expected to re-introduce the bill this year.
Read the full article from Here
A better life is in sight for dozens of dogs.
PAWS Chicago welcomed 25 beagles from a massive rescue operation on Saturday.
Last week, more than a thousand dogs were rescued from Ridglan Farms in Blue Mounds, Wisconsin, after weeks of protests over their treatment of the dogs. Ridglan Farms agreed to sell 1,500 of the facility’s roughly 2,000 beagles, which were then transferred to rescue organizations across the country, including PAWS Chicago.
Celene Mielcarek, PAWS Chicago chief program officer, explained what’s next for the dogs as they begin their new lives.
“These beagles have lived their lives in isolation. They’ve lived their lives in cages inside. We’re going to make sure that they are healthy. They’re each going to get tucked in by a volunteer into warm bedding. They’re each going to get a yummy dinner tonight, and they’re going to start that new chapter of their life,” she said.
She says it will take some time for the beagles to get used to being dogs and understanding what it’s like to live in a home. To help with that, they will be sent to experienced foster homes that will help them understand human connection.
Once the beagles are ready, they’ll head to the PAWS Chicago Lincoln Park adoption center to meet their forever family.
Jaelen Reaves is well-prepared to study vocal music starting this fall at Oakland University.
And the reason why will be on display this week at Detroit’s Fox Theatre.
“An Evening of Fine Arts,” a free show taking place on Wednesday, May 6, is the Detroit Public Schools Community District’s 57th showcase of performing and visual arts. Some 760 students from 14 schools will take part in the presentation, which includes 27 stage performances and 26 works on display in the Fox’s Grand Lobby.
And for students such as Reaves, who attends the Detroit School of Arts, it’s a chance to take a step towards a career on a stage that’s hosted showbusiness legends they’ve looked up to.
“It’s like, wow, because I know people like Patti LaBelle and Chaka Khan and so many others have performed there,” says Reaves, 18, a vocal soprano who will perform with the DSA Lady Achievers and Concert Choir on Wednesday. “The fact that they sang on that stage and I’m about to sing on that stage is crazy. Just going to the Fox to see (a performance) is a privilege; for me to be performing on that stage is really an honor.
“The fact I have the opportunity to showcase my talent and what we represent here (at DSA). If I was in another school, I would never have had this opportunity. I definitely don’t take it for granted.”
Other performances during the night will come from the district’s harp and vocal ensemble, which recently celebrated its 100th anniversary and is the oldest such program in the country, and a selection of choirs, jazz bands, orchestras and theater programs.
“(The evening) spotlights the voices of our students in the highest visual and performing arts programs, district-wide,” says Andrew McGuire, deputy executive director of fine and performing arts for DPSCD. “When our students are stepping on the stage, they’re not only stepping into a legacy, they’re also stepping into the future as performers — as actors, as singers and all of that.”
The evening also demonstrates DCSPD’s continuing commitment to arts education at a time when many districts nationwide have severely limited or completely curtailed similar curriculum.
“We have a whole-child commitment,” McGuire explains, “which has meant the rebuilding and revitalization of fine and performing arts (education) district-wide. And DSA is not the only space where artists exist. All 106 schools have fine and performing arts, with most schools having two or more (programs) in them. It’s really exciting that in an age when there’s so much talk about pulling back, restricting and cutting, that’s not in our narrative at DPSCD. We’re proud of that.”
Reaves is certainly emblematic of the district’s effectiveness. Raised in an artistic family, as well as singing in church, she became interested in classical singing, but plans to study a broad array of styles at Oakland. “I just want to be a solo performer who has every single (style) under my belt,” she says. “I don’t want to just sing one type of genre. I would love to go around the world singing all types of things
“I know that singing, for me, is not a hobby. It’s something that’s in my blood. I can’t do anything but sing every day. So I want to make the best of it.”
The Detroit Public Schools Community District’s “An Evening of Fine Arts” takes place at 6 p.m. Wednesday, May 6, at the Fox Theatre, 2211 Woodward Ave., Detroit. Admission is free, but tickets are required. 313-471-7000 or 313Presents.com.
Policies strengthening housing code enforcement and integrating housing interventions into public health strategies are critical steps for improving the health outcomes of Milwaukee families.
Watch Milwaukee’s city attorney discuss lawsuits against landlord
Milwaukee City Attorney Evan Goyke discusses two lawsuits filed against Highgrove Holdings, LLC during a press conference.
The deterioration of housing quality in Milwaukee is not just a policy or economic issue; it’s a vivid illustration of the importance of public health initiatives.
As a medical student, I have seen how unstable housing complicates chronic conditions and contributes to repeated healthcare encounters. The articles “Milwaukee city attorney slaps out-of-state landlord with lawsuits” (March 26) and “Low-income Milwaukee families face systemic failures we must fix” (April 12) are prime examples of the ways Milwaukee landlords are contributing to health inequities. Residents reported experiencing leaky roofs, pest infestations, chipping paint, lack of running water and lack of heat.
These conditions disproportionately affect low-income renters, reflecting longstanding patterns of disinvestment and weak enforcement of housing standards. Leaking roofs promote mold growth in homes, which is associated with asthma exacerbation and other respiratory illnesses. Chipping paint increases risk of lead poisoning, which can cause irreversible neurological changes in children. Lack of heat can worsen chronic disease, including cardiovascular conditions, and lead to cold-related injuries, such as frostbite.
This blatant disregard of tenants is negligent.
Safe housing is foundational to health. Policies strengthening housing code enforcement and integrating housing interventions into public health strategies are critical steps for improving the health outcomes of Milwaukee families.
Olivia Avery, Madison
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