An 18-year-old was arrested last week and charged in a nearly year-long “sextortion” investigation after allegedly targeting students in multiple Aurora middle and high schools.
Jamir Deante Bright of Aurora faces three felony “sextortion” charges, including two counts of child sexual exploitation and one count of criminal extortion, according to court records.
The investigation launched in January after police officers received reports of students at several Aurora schools being sexually exploited by anonymous Instagram accounts, according to a news release from the police department.
Sextortion is a form of exploitation where children are blackmailed, most often through the threat of publishing an explicit image, police said. Sextortion could also involve sharing sexually explicit images with others in exchange for money.
Aurora investigators said Bright targeted Aurora students with both.
Investigators were not able to confirm which schools were involved on Thursday that they had received reports from students and officials at Rangeview, Smoky Hill, Gateway, Vista Peak, Cherokee Trail and Overland high schools, as well as Aurora Hills and Mrachek middle schools.
The total number of victims remains unknown, said Sgt. Joseph Sullivan of the Aurora Police Department’s Internet Crimes Against Children Unit. Only a few of those targeted came forward.
Lt. Seth Robertson said not all of the photos posted to the Instagram account were identifiable.
“Unfortunately, with cases like these, there may be other pictures where we haven’t had a person come forward and say ‘That’s my picture’,” Robertson said. “That’s where we encourage people, even with there already being an arrest in this case, to come forward.”
In January, student journalists at Aurora’s Rangeview High School published an article detailing an Instagram account that apparently obtained illicit photographs of students and sold the uncensored versions. The journalists reported victims had to pay the account to have their photographs removed.
“The Instagram account was created as an ‘exposed’ account,” Sullivan said. “People will submit various pictures and videos of other people that they’re in possession of and then they get posted to these Instagram accounts to expose the naked pictures to others.”
Sullivan said there were multiple Instagram accounts involved and they have since been removed.
Police believe Bright worked with two accomplices: an unidentified 17-year-old and 14-year-old who both live in Denver, according to the news release.
As far as investigators can tell, Bright was behind the Instagram account and extorting students to get their photos taken down while the other two were mainly involved with sharing the images with Bright.
The teenagers’ names are not being released because of their ages and they both face unspecified charges in Aurora Municipal Court, police said.
Aurora police detectives, Homeland Security investigators, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the Denver District Attorney’s Office partnered on the “Internet Crimes Against Children” investigation, according to the police department.
Investigators executed numerous search warrants and filed multiple court orders and subpoenas for online records from Instagram, Aurora police said. They seized and examined multiple electronic devices from Bright and his suspected accomplices and searched “countless” social media profiles to identify the three.
Bright is out of custody on a $10,000 bond and is expected to appear in court on Jan. 10, for a preliminary hearing, according to court records.
Police said the investigation is ongoing and anyone with any information is asked to contact Metro Denver Crime Stoppers at 720-913-7867.
Any child or teenager who has been sexually exploited online can access a variety of resources — including internet safety information, law enforcement guides and more — on the or through the .
If anyone sent out nude, partially nude or sexually explicit photos and videos before they were 18 years old and believes they have been or will be publicly distributed, the national center’s “” program allows the photos to be anonymously flagged and removes them from online platforms.
