SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) – A Utah man has been charged with multiple felonies after he allegedly used his ex-boyfriend’s phone to send child pornography to users across multiple social media platforms.
Skyler Tapia, 27, was been charged with ten counts of sexual exploitation of a minor on Nov. 12 after a two-year-long investigation.
On Sept. 9, 2019, officials began receiving Cybertips that were being generated by Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, AOL, and a private citizen about an account that was being controlled by Tapia.
The chats in Facebook messenger showed that the account holder sent child pornography to other users on Dec. 26. However, officials say the account holder was in jail at the time of the chats. Shortly after, police found that Tapia was allegedly controlling the account in an attempt to blackmail his ex-boyfriend, charging documents show.
A cyber tip that came from Twitter revealed Tapia’s email address and showed another conversation where Tapia sent images of more child pornography.
When officials searched Tapia’s AOL account on Aug. 12, it was revealed that he was sending images of child pornography to himself.
After this incident, Police obtained a search warrant for Tapia’s Snapchat account which showed a video of child pornography, according to charging documents.
The IP address associated with some of the distributed images traced back to a subscriber with a service address in Salt Lake City.
On Nov. 9, police executed a search warrant for this address which they confirmed was Tapia’s.
After being interviewed by police, Tapia admitted to using his ex-boyfriend’s Facebook account and his own accounts to distribute child pornography in an attempt to blackmail his ex-boyfriend, charging documents show.
