Polk County man used gaming chat site to extort photos from Illinois teen, deputies say

POLK COUNTY, Fla. – A Davenport man is accused of using a gaming chat site and social media to solicit and extort lewd photos out of a teen girl living in Illinois, according to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office.

Antonio Medina, 19, was arrested on March 3.

The man met the victim on the online gaming chat site Discord three years ago, according to investigators.

[TRENDING: ‘Manatee graveyard in Fla. | 6 major announcements from Disney | Fla. woman charged in US Capitol attack]

Through the site, Medina asked for nude and sexually explicit images of the victim until she stopped speaking to him, records show.

Deputies said Medina then reached out to the girl through Instagram to continue his demands and began threatening to send the photos he had already received to the victim’s friends and family. The girl then alerted her parents who contacted Illinois State Police, records show.

The state police traced the messages to Davenport and contacted the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. Deputies said they found evidence of the messages and photos on Medina’s personal devices and that he admitted to sharing the photos of the girl.

“This predator is a textbook example of why it’s so important for parents to be involved in their children’s online activities,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said in a news release. “This poor child was groomed, and then subjected to pornography, extortion, and mental and emotional abuse. We’re hopeful she will be able to recover from this trauma, and that this predator goes to prison for what he’s done.”

Medina faces charges of promoting sexual performance of a child, extortion, use of a computer to seduce a child and transmission of material harmful to a minor.