An Ogden man is in custody and is now facing criminal charges in a case where police say he posed as a woman on social media in order to get men, mostly boys, to send him nude photos of themselves. James Robert Louis Wood, 18, has been charged with 12 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, a second-degree felony, and an additional 10 counts of dealing in harmful materials to a minor by an adult, a third-degree felony. Wood allegedly utilized Facebook in his attempts to contact 11 people to send him nude photos between December 2016 through February of this year, while using the alias "Jessica Ford" and pretending to be a young woman.
According to the charges Wood's method of operation would usually start with making friends with these boys through Facebook Messenger, then after some time had passed he would request nude photos which the minors would send him. He would also send the victims nude pictures of his "Jessica Ford" persona in order to further entice them and to establish that the alias was real. After receiving the photos, would began showing them to people at his high school and even went so far as to send one to the sibling of a victim.
So far 11 of the boys that have been seen in the pictures have been identified as minors.
Public domain photo