Pittsburgh-area high school student facing more than 300 felony charges in child sextortion and catfishing scheme

[FakeNoose]

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette link: https://www.post-gazette.com/news/crime-courts/2026/02/20/peters-township-pennsylvania-high-school-student-charged-felony-sextortion/stories/202602200083

A Peters Township High School senior is accused of orchestrating elaborate catfishing and sextortion scheme that targeted fellow students across multiple social media platforms, ultimately coercing the boys to send explicit photos and videos — including at least one filmed surreptitiously in a locker room.

Zachariah Abraham Meyers, 18, faces 304 charges ranging from sexual exploitation of and sexual abuse of children to unlawful contact with minors and wiretap law violations.

According to the criminal complaint in his case, Mr. Meyers posed as a woman on social media sites including Snapchat and TikTok, sometimes using photos of a Dutch adult-film actress to exchange photos and videos with the teens.

At least 14 teenagers sent explicit photos after they were contacted by accounts traced back to Mr. Meyers, many of which used some variation of the name “Claire Mauve.” The Claire Mauve account would eventually prompt some of the boys to move their communications to Telegram, a cloud-based messaging platform.

Catfishing is the term used to describe creating a fake or deceptive online persona to target others. Sextortion involves coercing intimate images from a victim and then using those images in extortion.

Police said Mr. Meyers coerced one of the teenagers to secretly record video inside the wrestling locker room at least six times, victimizing at least 10 other teenage boys who didn’t know they were being recorded. The teen told police that after not sending videos for some time, the person behind the account — allegedly Mr. Meyers — told the boy he needed something “to keep my silence.”

That same teenager, according to the complaint, was coerced into engaging in sex acts with two adult men at Mr. Meyers’ behest.

Another teenager told police that after sending photos to the Claire Mauve account, the defendant demanded $500 in gift cards, threatening otherwise to send the photos to the victim’s family and friends. When the teen ignored the demands, Mr. Meyers allegedly sent the explicit photos of the boy to a relative.

Mr. Meyers forwarded some of the explicit photos and videos sent to him to other victims, according to the complaint. In some instances, police said, he directed victims to seek out and photograph other students by name.

- more at link -



Here's another reason why kids shouldn't be walking around with cell phones during school hours. Parents really NEED to install safeguards on their children's phones. Arrgghh!