A North Lauderdale man accused of threatening a 12-year-old girl over the internet to obtain pornographic images from her was behind bars on $1 million bond Wednesday.
Richard Jacques, 22, was arrested Tuesday on charges of possession of child pornography, compiling child pornography, computer pornography - solicitation of a child and extortion, according to a Broward Sheriff's Office arrest report.
Jacques, who is listed as a student, remained in the Broward jail Wednesday. It was unknown if he has an attorney.
According to the report, the South Florida Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force began in investigation earlier this month after police in Napa, California, learned that a suspect was in possession of child pornography and was threatening a 12-year-old child to obtain pornography from her.
Authorities tied the crime to Jacques, has a history of a soliciting young female victims online using various social media networks, the report said.
Jacques "develops online relationships with young female victims and persuades them to create and share pornographic images and/or live webcam footage of themselves that he later uses to extort/threaten them in an effort to obtain more explicit pornographic images," the report said.
In regards to the 12-year-old girl, the report said Jacques would "maliciously threaten her reputation by exposing the photographs and video of her in an effort to disgrace her," the report said.
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"Do you want to be known as a whore for the rest of your life?" he said in one Skype message, according to the report.
"If you keep fighting me I will just put it online," he said in another.
At one point, Jacques threatened to kill her family is she didn't show him some of her body parts, the report said.
After Jacques was arrested, he told authorities he knew the girl was 12 but he continued the conversation with her and asked her for pictures of herself, the report said. He denied keeping the pictures or having video of her.
"Jacques stated he knew what he was doing was wrong but he was angry and through his anger he threatened to expose the nude pictures of [the victim] if she did not do what he demanded," the report said.
When authorities searched his room, they found a media storage device with a nearly 17-minute-long video that depicts child pornography, the report said.
