'SEXTORTION' ALLEGED: Riverside County Man Accused of Hacking Young Women's Computers Released on $50K Bond

Update 6:50 p.m. A Riverside County man accused of using malicious software and tools to disguise his identity and take nude photos or videos of young women through remote operation of their webcams, without their consent, was released Thursday afternoon on $50,000 bond, an FBI spokeswoman said.

Jared James Abrahams, 19, of Temecula, will be subject to pretrial supervision and home detention with electronic monitoring, Laura Eimiller of the FBI said in an update on federal court proceedings in Orange County.

"Judge Rosenbluth limited Abraham's computer use to a desktop located at his parents' home for school purposes," Eimiller said. "Monitoring software will be installed on the computer used by Abrahams."

Abrahams waived a preliminary hearing and is scheduled for a post-indictment arraignment at 10 a.m. Nov. 4, Eimiller said.

Posted 4:15 p.m. A Riverside County man was arrested Thursday and accused of using malicious software and tools to disguise his identity and take nude photos or videos of young women through remote operation of their webcams without their consent, according to the FBI.

Jared James Abrahams, 19, of Temecula, was arrested Sept. 26 after surrendering to FBI agents in Orange County, federal officials announced in a statement distributed Thursday afternoon.

The man's alleged victims reside in southern California, Maryland, and countries believed to include Ireland, Canada, Russia and Moldova, according to the FBI.

An investigation that began in March showed "Abrahams threatened to publicly post compromising photos or video to the victims' online social media accounts, unless the victim either sent nude photos or videos, or engaged in a Skype session with him and did what he said for five minutes," according 
to a federal criminal complaint filed Sept. 17 and unsealed Sept. 26.

The FBI first learned of the alleged extortion activity from an 18-year-old woman, identified in the complaint by the initials, "C.W."

The woman C.W. is Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf, now 19, a Great Oak High School graduate, who was crowned Miss Teen USA Aug. 10 and vowed to spread awareness of cyber crime.

"I interviewed an eighteen-year-old woman, C.W., who told me that she learned on March 21, 2013, that her laptop computer had been compromised because she received an alert from Facebook that someone was trying to change her account password," FBI Agent Julie Patton stated in the affidavit.

"She subsequently learned that her Twitter, Tumblr, and Yahoo! email passwords had been changed and that someone had changed her Twitter profile picture to a half nude picture," the affidavit states. "About thirty minutes after the first notification from Facebook, she received an email message from F.L. aim.com (later identified as an email  address taken over by Abrahams) at her Yahoo! email account.

"The email included two attachments that C.W. recognized as nude photographs of herself taken in her current Riverside County residence," the affidavit states. "The nude photographs appeared to be taken from her laptop's webcam without her knowledge. Based on the background furnishings in some of the other photographs attached to the email, C.W. concluded that those photographs were taken several months earlier, when she lived in Orange County, California."

The author of the e-mail, later identified as Abrahams, offered C.W. a choice of complying with his demands or having her nude photographs posted "all over the Internet," according to the FBI.

C.W. advised the FBI that she has never knowingly taken or allowed anyone to take nude photographs of her, according to the complaint.

On June 4, federal search warrants were executed by agents and detectives at Abrahams' residence in Temecula, according to the complaint.

Here's more from the FBI announcement:

In one instance, Abrahams threatened C.W. with transforming her "dream of being a model . . . into a pornstar," if she did not comply with his demands.

In e-mail messages, Abrahams heckled C.W. for making her password so easy for him to guess on her Facebook account, according to the complaint.

Digital evidence obtained during a federal search warrant served at Abraham's  residence in June 2013 contained hacking software, as well as images and videos of some of the victims.

A forensic analysis of C.W.'s computer revealed evidence consistent with malware and remote administration tools later linked to Abrahams who used the domain name, "cutefuzzypuppy."

The same domain name was also linked to discussion boards in hacker forums by a participant researching, among other things, ways to spread malware and control webcams, according to the complaint.

Abrahams gained unauthorized access to the accounts of multiple victims in  southern California and Maryland, as well as in countries believed to include Ireland, Canada, Russia and Moldova, according to the complaint. At least one victim is a minor.
The complaint details Abraham's alleged contact with various victims from whom he obtained nude photographs and video. In one case, a victim believed to reside in Ireland and identified in the complaint only as M.M. #1, reluctantly complied with Abrahams demands to converse via Skype.

According to the complaint, M.M. #1 wrote "I'm downloading Skype now. Please remember I'm only 17. Have a heart."
Abrahams allegedly responded "I'll tell you this right now! I do NOT have a heart!!! However I do stick to my deals! Also age doesn't mean a thing to me!!!"
According to the FBI, Abrahams allegedly acknowledged during an interview that he infected victims' computers with malware, watched his victims in states of undress, and used photographs to extort his victims.

Abrahams allegedly told the FBI he knew C.W. personally, and he also admitted to getting M.M. #1 "to go on Skype and take her clothes off at his direction," according to the complaint.

Investigators believe Abrahams has victimized more women. They have not identified all the victims whose accounts were allegedly hacked by Abrahams.

Anyone who believes they were victimized in this case is urged to call the FBI Los Angeles Field Office at (310) 477-6565.

Police in Temecula and Baltimore assisted the FBI in their investigation.

The FBI described Abrahams' alleged actions as "sextortion," which they defined as "a type of extortion and/or blackmail of a victim. Typically, the victim is extorted and/or blackmailed with a nude image of the victim. The person committing the sextortion threatens to release the nude image publicly unless the victim, among other things, performs a sexual act. The person committing the sextortion is typically threatening to harm the reputation of the victim by disclosing the nude image."

The charge of extortion carries a maximum penalty of 2 years in federal prison, according to the FBI.