OGDEN — An Ogden man faces criminal charges after police say he posed as a female on social media in order to get males — mostly boys — to send him nude photos.
James Robert Louis Wood, 18, was charged Monday in 2nd District Court with 12 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, a second-degree felony; and 10 counts of dealing in harmful materials to a minor by an adult, a third-degree felony.
Wood allegedly used Facebook messenger to entice 11 people to send him nude photos from December 2016 through February. He did this while pretending to be a female named "Jessica Ford," charging documents state. The court documents do not indicate if his "Jessica" persona was represented to be an adult or a teenager.
"James would make friends with these individuals on Facebook Messenger, and after some conversations back and forth he would request nude photos which the minor victims had sent him," according to the charges.
Wood would send the victims nude photos of an unidentifed female, the charges state, to "also entice the minor victims to send more photos and convince them that his alias, 'Jessica Ford' was real."
After he received the photos, Wood showed some of them to people at school and sent one of the photos to a victim's sibling, according to the charges.
Some of the victims attended Roy High School, where Wood would show other students some of the photos that were sent to him, according to a pair of search warrant affidavits filed in 2nd District Court.
Police interviewed Wood on March 8.
"James stated that he created a fake Facebook account in order to obtain nude photographs of males," the warrant states. "Officer Truscott and your affiant were able to identify 11 of the males as juveniles."
Wood's initial appearance in court is scheduled for Tuesday.