Pauline Stuart: I Want Parents to Know the Truth About Sextortion

Pauline shares how her son was financially sextorted

Transcripts are autogenerated

Cindy Peralta: Today, we have the privilege of hearing from survivors and advocates who have lived through these harms and are here to help empower you to understand what is happening and how you can help make a difference. It’s my honor to introduce them to you now.

First, we have Pauline Stuart. Pauline is a former special education teacher and a mother of two boys. After losing her son Ryan to sextortion, she has become a passionate advocate for online safety. Using his story to help educate parents and children about the crime of sextortion.

Pauline, thank you so much for being here today. Can you share with us how this crime has impacted you and your family, and what you want parents to know?

Pauline Stuart: Thank you. Thank you for having me. My son Ryan last was a victim of sextortion, and I am using his story to help educate, kids and, parents. So Ryan was a 17 year old high school senior, straight-A student, working on his Eagle Scout project to second degree black belts. He was the secretary of his local FFA chapter and getting ready to, go to college.

He was extremely excited to go to Washington State University. Yeah, and his heart set on it. But as a parent, I wanted him to see all his options. So we went down to Southern California, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego. Just wanted him to see all of his options. We came back after the trip and he was still set on going to Washington State.

That was his dream. So we started planning his tour up there. We it with the tour that we were going to go to. It was around his birthday, so we had to figure out exactly how we could get his birthday with his friends and then still go visit us. So at the like, within a day of coming back from the trip, my younger son was, dog sitting.

So we drove down to help him take care of his coach’s animals because he couldn’t drive after dark. When we left, we had just had a family dinner. We left. Ryan was very happy. Normal South. We went down. We probably got home about 930. We, you know, we had a few conversations. Ryan was still. Yeah, normal, happy person.

We brush our teeth. We went to bed, and needless to know, somebody had reached out to him through Google Hangouts, which is a program that we allowed him a little bit more access to because he was using it during the pandemic, for school. So someone had reached out to him, started an innocent conversation. He thought it was a young girl.

They just started simple talking about. Oh, I like your pose, you know, just simple things. Eventually, they sent him a nude picture and asked for one in return. Unfortunately, my son was very trusting, and he sent one within seconds of sending that picture. They demanded $5,000 from them. Unfortunately he couldn’t. We had parental controls on so he could not download apps.

They wanted him to, send money to a certain location, which needed a special app. We could. He couldn’t do that. So he kept saying, I can’t. And eventually, they asked him to switch over to Instagram, and he did, and they told them instead, if you don’t have the money, give us past your access and your password to Instagram.

He did the, trusting boy that he was developed that that was going to be the end of it. But unfortunately they pulled his contacts and sent him a collage of his picture and all of his contacts and friends saying, if you do not send money, we will send this collage out to all your family and friends. We had recently set up an account, for Ryan because he was getting ready for college.

He was able to send them $150. When? As soon as he did that, they realized he wasn’t money source and he did have money, so they continued to threaten him. They also tried sympathy, saying that the only reason they’re doing that is because they have a sister. And again, he begged them, please don’t ruin my life. I don’t have any money.

I can’t send any more money. But they continued to pressure him until he felt he had no choice but to take his life. The one thing that I want to let you guys all know that this happened from start. First contact till the end in eight hours. It was a quick, fast moving thing. We were in bed.

My younger son had got up in the middle of the night, saw Ryan’s light on, but he was working on his AP physics project. So it is something that happens really quickly. Our family was very, very close. Ryan would come to me to talk about what? Girl? What is what girly like what recommendations do I have? He’s a kid that you could read when he was upset.

So before we went to bed, he was not showing any signs because it was still in the regular communication. The one thing I stress when I talk is talk to your kids about this. Also, talk to them to make sure that they can come to you for anything. I could come to him. He could come to me with anything.

But at that point, he was so scared. Kids make mistakes. As a parent, we need to let them know that no matter what mistake they make, we are there for them and we will be there. We come to us with any problem, and if they don’t feel that they can talk to you, make sure they have an uncle, a cousin, or even one of their best friends.

Ryan’s friends were devastated because they said if he would have come to me, we would have helped. So make sure that your kids know that they have somebody to talk to and that person will completely support them. The impact on our family is my younger son. He just started college. He has no social media. He has no desire to be on that because he’s so afraid of what that can happen with it.

And the other thing that I have found for all my talking, I travel with the Silicon Valley ICAC is a lot of people listen to our story and say, that would never happen to me. That would never happen to my family. Unfortunately, we thought something like this could never touch us, but it did. And so I have had people that have been through Ryan’s story and have heard the whole thing.

They got online thinking that it would never happen to them. They still fell victim because these people have enough arsenal of pictures to convince them that they did. But at least with me getting my story out when it got too deep, they knew that they could go to their parents. So they still fell victim. But it didn’t go as far as it did with Ryan.

They were able to come to their parents, and they were able to get the support they needed. So I hope that Ryan’s story helps people pay attention and learn from this. And and make life better for their family and their kids and so they can support them. Thank you.

Cindy Peralta: Thank you, Pauline, for your bravery and and sharing your family’s story. And I’m so very sorry for the loss you experience. I hope that every parent here takes your message to heart, that now is really the time to be aware and have these preventative conversations with their kids.