Kaohsiung man receives 13 years for blackmailing underage girls into sex

Kaohsiung, Nov. 6 (CNA) A Kaohsiung man has been sentenced to 13 years and eight months in prison for encouraging underage girls to take lewd photos of themselves and then blackmailing them into having sex over an 11-year period, according to the Kaohsiung District Court.

In the ruling handed down on Oct. 25, the court said the man, identified by his family name Chen (陳), was found guilty of crimes against eight girls from 2011 to 2022.

Seven of the girls were aged between 12-18 when the offenses took place, meaning Chen violated the Protection of Children and Youths Welfare and Rights Act, the court said.

The court noted that the man's actions caused tremendous mental and physical harm to the young girls to satisfy his sexual urges, and further reprimanded him for failing to reach settlements with the victims.

During the trial, Chen confessed to his crimes, but argued that one of the eight victims was his girlfriend, an account the court rejected.

The court said the man started to commit the offenses as a minor by wooing girls he knew through online apps with money, cellphones and gifts before persuading them to take lewd or obscene photos of themselves.

Chen later used the photos to force the young girls into having sex with him by threatening to share them online or harm their family members if the girls did not comply with his demands, the court said.

The case came to light when four of the victims reported Chen to the police who arrested him shortly afterwards at a private residence in the Daliao District of Kaohsiung, where prosecutors seized hundreds of indecent photos and videos on his computers.

The ruling can be appealed.