The creator of a rogue Facebook page followed through on threats to publish nude and sexually explicit photographs of underage girls from across Maine, restoring the page under different names numerous times Wednesday after it was taken down by Facebook.

In the latest version, the page’s creator started posting more photographs of girls with their names around 7 p.m. Most of the victims appear to be under 18. Each photograph also contained a profanity-filled message.

“You and your friends have roughly 25 minutes to state your case why you think I shouldn’t post your nudes,” read one of several threatening messages on the page before the photos were posted. Nude photographs of at least 12 girls were shown.

Facebook took down the latest incarnation of the page around 8 p.m. Company officials didn’t respond to messages seeking comment Wednesday night.

The Maine State Police computer crimes task force is leading the investigation, but couldn’t say Wednesday night who was posting the photos or how they were obtained. A handful of the images had been verified as showing people from Maine, and police were working to determine the identities of other people in the photos.

“The pictures are real,” said state police Detective David Armstrong. “We’re not sure where they’re coming from, but they are real people and it’s a real bad joke.”

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He said state police are working with a handful of Maine girls who have identified themselves in the pictures, but police haven’t confirmed whether all the pictures on the page are of Maine residents. Most of the photos appear to be selfies, Armstrong said.

The page surfaced Tuesday, but was taken down by Facebook officials after complaints from law enforcement agencies. The page reappeared under different names Wednesday and kept getting taken down.

Cassie Crain, who lives in Harpswell, had seen enough by Tuesday evening. The 18-year-old decided to create a Facebook support page for the victims that she said had more than 8,000 visits as of Wednesday night.

“I started the page to help support these girls,” Crain said. “I’ve heard (through Facebook) that two of the girls have tried to kill themselves.”

Crain knows two of the victims, saying both are 14 and entering ninth grade.

“I have no idea who is doing this, but it’s horrible,” she said.

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Although authorities haven’t commented on how nude photographs of teenage girls could have been acquired by the rogue Facebook page, Crain has a theory.

She believes the perpetrator is gaining access to the photos by hacking into cellphones. She supported her theory by saying one of the victims on her support page reported that the page’s creator told her he was hacking into personal phones to collect images.

“I also think there is more than one person involved,” Crain said.

CREATOR ‘FEEDING OFF’ REACTION

Armstrong, reviewing the page that went up Wednesday night, said there was no way to verify the claims that the photos were of specific individuals.

“No faces are shown to say it’s this person,” Armstrong said. He said its possible that the graphic images have been harvested from pornographic sites.

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Armstrong said the posts he viewed Wednesday night were marked by users who “liked” the photos and videos. The page had promised to provide additional images when an image or comment receives a certain number of likes.
“Obviously, whoever is doing this is feeding off it,” the detective said.

Armstrong said police are working to gather information to submit a request for a search warrant. “Unfortunately, it’s not a quick thing,” he said.

The page originally posted Tuesday included an email address and a message for viewers to “Email or inbox me. I’ll take care of your ex.” The email address was hosted by yandex.com, a large Russian Internet company.

Facebook messages and an email sent to the address by a Morning Sentinel reporter were not returned Wednesday.

Law enforcement officials in Maine said that although websites that post sexually explicit pictures of underage people or unknowing ones are common, the magnitude of the case is unusual because it was done on the social media site that has an estimated 1.49 billion users.

Police have asked Facebook to preserve all the accounts they believe to be associated with the case so they cannot be deleted. They also are working to put together an affidavit asking for information from all accounts made by the creator of the original page, Armstrong said.

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“We’re still trying to find the source. It could pop up again on another site, not just Facebook,” said Oakland Police Capt. Rick Stubbert, one of the first officers to report the page.

“I’ve been in law enforcement since 1989 and this is the first time I’ve seen anything like it,” said Skowhegan Police Chief Donald Bolduc, who said his department was made aware of the page Tuesday by a community member.

“I’m mortified that somebody would actually do that to another human being,” he said.

COMPLAINTS BY POLICE MOUNT

State police were notified of the page around 5 p.m. Tuesday by the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office, which learned of the page from a school resource officer in the county, Armstrong said.

He believes the page was only up for a short period, although there were dozens of images on it.

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The original page was taken down late Tuesday after police agencies around the state complained, but at least three more versions believed to be related appeared Wednesday.

Armstrong knows of at least a dozen police agencies from around the state that contacted Facebook about the page.

“Everywhere from York County, Somerset County, I think there were some in Bath, the Topsham area out to Rockwood. It was a big area,” he said.

Not all of the pictures on the pages were sexually explicit, and Armstrong said two related pages that were up Wednesday evening didn’t include sexually explicit photos and had not been taken down by Facebook.

TEACHING SAFER CHOICES

Law enforcement officials interviewed Wednesday said it is not uncommon for police to get reports of sexually explicit photos or images being shared online on anonymous image boards where users can search for pictures by state and even by town. But spreading such images on Facebook is unusual.

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Skowhegan’s Bolduc said pornographic images often circulate through sexting – sending sexually explicit photographs or messages via text message.

“I think there’s been a lot of educational opportunities to address that with teenage or high school kids for quite some time,” he said. “I don’t know if people realize that once a photograph is submitted into the electronic world, via the Internet or social media, it is out there and can never be taken back.”

Detective Ron McGowen, the school resource officer in Winslow, said he meets with students on the first day of school to talk about issues like sexting and online harassment.

“I think the biggest thing for us is trying to teach them what the outcome could be,” McGowan said. “Our hope is that they make good choices.”

CRIMINALIZING IMAGE POSTING

In a written statement Wednesday afternoon, state Rep. Kenneth Fredette, R-Newport, said the incident highlights the importance of a law passed by the Legislature this year that criminalizes posting sexual images without consent.

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The law makes “unauthorized dissemination of private images” a class D crime, punishable by a maximum of 364 days in jail and a $2,000 fine. The law will go into effect Oct. 15, according to the Revisor of Statutes Office.

“We live in the era of social media, and unfortunately that means we live in a world where this type of behavior is taking place,” Fredette said. “This is exactly the type of act that this law will make criminal in Maine.”

Rep. Diane Russell, D-Portland, the bill’s co-sponsor, said the Facebook page was a “cowardly act.”

“This is precisely why we need legal tools enabling law enforcement to track down and effectively prosecute these dredges of society,” Russell said.

Alicia Barnes, a Waterville digital media consultant who reported the initial page Tuesday night, spends a lot of time on social media for her job and reports half-a-dozen pages to Facebook a day because of content.

Reporting a page on Facebook is easy, she said, but there is no way to specify that it’s child pornography.

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There’s a pull-down menu on the Facebook timeline that walks someone reporting a page through a series of questions.

“But it doesn’t have a mechanism for reporting child pornography or a page that features child pornography,” she said.

One of the issues, she said, is that reporting is done through the site. Barnes deals with Facebook all day long but she’s never spoken with or had direct contact with any Facebook staff.

Armstrong noted that it was only after a public outcry and the involvement of law enforcement that the pages came down.

“Can we stop them? I think for now, we can only stop each individual page based on what happens, but they can continue to create new accounts and that isn’t for us to distinguish,” he said. “That’s not for us to determine, but for Facebook.”

Press Herald Staff Writer Dennis Hoey and Kennebec Journal Staff Writer Craig Crosby contributed to this report.


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