A Cape Coral teen is accused of taking nude photographs of herself and distributing them to others, along with posting them on a social networking website.
The 17-year-old was arrested and charged Thursday with one count of cruelty toward child, direct promote sexual performance by child and one count of possess obscene material with intent to promote photo movie of sexual performance by child, according to the Lee County Jail records.
The teen was later released from juvenile detention. A telephone message left Friday seeking comment was not returned by the teen, or her family.
According to an arrest report, the South Florida Internet Crimes Against Children received 11 cybertips about possible child pornography images on a MySpace account. The pictures appeared to be images of a girl taking pictures of herself in various stages of nudity.
An investigation by authorities revealed that the teen is a student at Ida S. Baker High School. Ida S. Baker School Resource Officer Gene Raphael helped to confirm the identification of the girl, and the case was turned over to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office’s Innocent Images Task Force, the report says.
The cybertips span from November to April, and detectives determined 34 pictures depict a child engaging in sexually explicit conduct, according to the report. Detectives executed a warrant on the teen’s residence and seized a computer and the girl’s cell phone.
During the search, the teen reportedly told detectives that she had taken the pictures of herself in different areas of her house and then uploaded the photos to her MySpace account. The girl next e-mailed the photos to her cell phone, then sent the images her current boyfriend and two ex-boyfriends.
According to the report, an examination of the teen’s phone revealed 42 pictures of the girl, of which eight were deemed to be “explicit child pornography.” On the computer that was seized, detectives found five pictures depicting “a child engaging in sexually explicit conduct.” There were also four nude photos.
During the investigation, detectives received five more cybertips about the same teen for additional dates in which additional images depicting alleged child porn had been uploaded to MySpace. From those, authorities determined there are 19 more picture of the girl that are “explicitly pornographic in nature.”
The teen has a court date set for Aug. 31.