April 9, 2018
Sex Offender's Online Blackmail Scheme Comes Crashing Down
Kilian Melloy READ TIME: 2 MIN.
Police have arrested a registered sex offender who allegedly threatened victims of an extortion scheme with exposure, leveraging videos of sexual acts he had already obtained to force his targets to provide still more graphic videos.
Local newspaper the Kitsap Sun reported that a 22-year-old sex offender living in Kitsap County, Washington, had been charged in the case. Identified as Christopher Malik Longmire, the suspect had been arrested for similar crimes as a juvenile, the report said.
Authorities used online metadata to trace blackmail threats made against a man in California back to Longmire in Washington. The Kitsap Sun article said that police confiscated computers and other devices found at Longmire's residence, and found unrelated child pornography.
Police also found leads that helped them identify several other men in Washington State who Longmire had blackmailed. Longmire reportedly traded explicit videos with his targets and then used the Internet to find their relatives. He would then demand new videos of a sexual nature from his victims, telling them if they did not comply he would send the videos already in his possession to relatives and friends of the victims. He would also dictate what sexual acts he wished to see his victims perform in the videos.
As a juvenile, the article said, Longmire had been arrested for similar deeds. As a 15-year-old, in 2011, Longmire wrote letters to one victim and claimed to have the boy under surveillance. Several years later, in 2014, Longmire passed himself off online as a girl and obtained explicit pictures from a 14-year-old boy. He then used those pictures to create bogus profiles at gay sites.
The Kitsap Sun article noted that the same paper had written about Longmire eight years ago after Longmire, then in the eighth grade, had participated in a Christian mentoring program called CHAMPS. At that time, Longmire had been paired with an adult male.
"From that time, my life's done an 180-turnaround," Longmire told the paper at the time, in speaking of the program.
Kilian Melloy serves as EDGE Media Network's Associate Arts Editor and Staff Contributor. His professional memberships include the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, The Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association, and the Boston Theater Critics Association's Elliot Norton Awards Committee.
