BROWARD COUNTY, Fla. — On this week’s Mom to Mom, Local 10’s Nicole Perez spoke to a South Florida mother who shared her son’s terrifying experience after being targeted by an online predator.
Kelly Grimes, a South Florida mother, shared her son’s experience with a sextortion scam, something she never thought she would ever be involved in.
“She told him she had a gun and that if he did not send very explicit inappropriate images to her, that there would be some harm. He was frantic calling me, asking me if he could have, I think the amount was like $200, $250 immediately. I’m like, Red Flag, what is going on? And he’s like, of course, explains to me that unfortunately, he had sent inappropriate images to someone that he met online,” said Grimes.
Grimes said her son was 13 years old when he spent a few days communicating with “Anna,” saying she send him photos of herself and asked him to do the same.
“As soon as that exchange happened, she of course said, I’m going to put these on the internet for all of your friends to see if you don’t send me money. And that’s where I got involved,” said Grimes.
Grimes told her son to block anything that came through any outlet from “Anna” and they went immediately to the police department.
“The detective told us that this is a rising issue aimed at people between 12 and 18 where there are people in usually countries outside of the United States who are real people posing to be these teenagers or youth that befriend people and then use it for that purpose. There are people out there that spend 24 hours a day, seven days a week on how to take advantage of children,” said Grimes.
Child Advocate, former classroom teacher, Florida Senator and a survivor of child sexual abuse, Lauren Book, is a staunch advocate dedicated to educating adults and children about sexual abuse prevention through Lauren’s Kids.
“We know that one in five children that touch a digital device will be solicited for sex online regardless of their gender, but we’re finding that young males are being targeted by these internet predators,” said Book.
That is exactly what happened to Grimes’ son.
“I allowed pretty much anything he could access on YouTube unfortunately. So, I actually found out that he had a TikTok account with this sextortion incident,” said Grimes.
Book says 95% of the time, we can prevent abuse. The Lauren’s Kids curriculum is all about teaching children how to stay safe.
“We’re making sure that certain websites are blocked, whether it’s YouTube Kids, whatever your children are navigating online that we’re paying attention to it. Every Friday, every Wednesday, we’re going to come and we’re going to do an audit of your device together. I’m going to read the text messages that you send. I’m going to look at the websites that you go on,” said Book.
For Grimes and her son, the experience has changed the way he uses the internet and social media.
“I do not allow him to have social media accounts such as TikTok anymore, Snapchat, things like that. I am much more aware of how much time, what websites, what social media we have, what apps we’re able to download. He learned a lot about internet safety, unfortunately, in a horrible way,” said Grimes.
As far as what happened to “Anna,” Grimes says the detective told her most of the time these people who do this are out of the country and to not “hold her breath” as far as finding out who she was. They also use different emails and third-party websites and move on shortly afterward.
For more information about Lauren’s Kids, click on this link.
For Lauren’s Kids curriculum, click on this link.
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