DAYTON — A 24-year-old Cincinnati-area man is accused of sending nude photos of himself through Snapchat to two girls, ages 12 and 13, in Centerville.
Scott W. Reed was summoned to court for an April 12 arraignment on 15 counts of disseminating matter harmful to juveniles following his Friday indictment filed in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court.
Reed, of Colerain Twp., is accused of sending photos of his genitals through the Snapchat messaging app to the two girls, according to a statement of facts filed in municipal court.
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Investigators said he tried to get one of the girls to engage in sexual activity, documents show.
“It’s disturbing people are using these popular apps that we use everyday for these purposes,” internet attorney Andrew Rossow said.
It’s not always a given that police are able to recover photos as evidence when they are sent through an app like Snapchat, which is designed to be available only for a short time before they become inaccessible to their recipients.
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“It’s rare that that actually happens because the idea behind Snapchat, is applications that have the self-destructing component to it, is they disappear,” Rossow said. “In this case, their servers were able to, to a certain extent, provide documentation of it, and I think it’s just the right time, right moment kind of thing.”
That helped Centerville police identify Reed as a suspect,along with other computer records, documents show.
Parent Kaitlyn West said with all the technology available to teens, it is more difficult to protect them.
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“There’s not very many ways to keep track of what they’re doing,” she said. “You don’t know who’s behind that screen, you know. It’s terrifying.”
According to the indictment, the offenses in the case are said to have happened from July through November in 2018.
Reed is not in custody.
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