Another South Carolina Prisoner Convicted of “Sextortion” of U.S. Military Personnel
South Carolina state prisoner Javarius G. Teague, 32, will head to federal prison when he leaves Evans Correctional Institution in 2029; the federal court for the District of South Carolina sentenced him on May 8, 2024, to spend another 33 months behind bars for extorting money from U.S. military personnel under threat of exposing sexually compromising images that he and accomplices tricked the soldiers into sending.
As PLN reported, five other state prisoners were earlier sentenced for “sextortion” of U.S. service members. The soldiers thought they were exchanging naked selfies with interested women, but their nudes actually went to fake social media accounts maintained by prisoners using contraband cellphones. Then followed an email from an angry “father,” claiming that the “woman” was an underage girl and threatening to turn over the soldier’s photos to prosecutors, who would charge him with child sex abuse. Of course, the “dad” was not so angry that he couldn’t be bought off. Before their scheme was busted, they had netted over $60,000 from 25 servicemen, one of whom committed suicide in 2018 out of despair over his images being shared. [See: PLN, June 2023, p.61.]
A second military suicide was blamed on Teague’s sextortion scam. Like those before it, his plot involved a request for nudes from a fake woman, followed by a threat to have the soldier prosecuted for child sex abuse. Co-conspirators picked up the bribes and deposited them in Teague’s prison JPay account.
Five co-conspirators were sentenced for their roles in the scheme, including Cassandra Poole. She got a 14-month term on February 22, 2024, with three years of supervised release and a $2,210 restitution obligation, plus a $100 special assessment. Co-conspirator Tirrian Gaines received the same sentence on August 18, 2023. Co-conspirator Shuntonia Lumar got a 14-month term plus the same supervised release and financial penalties on December 20, 2023. On the same day Teague was sentenced, the Court revoked co-conspirator Tiara S. Poole Sullivan’s original sentence to time served; she was ordered to federal prison for four months, followed by 32 months of supervised release. The same thing happened to co-conspirator Candace Dobbins on April 25, 2024; she had originally been sent to pretrial diversion in May 2023.Both women also got a $2,210 restitution obligation, plus a $100 special assessment.
Teague, too, was ordered to pay $2,210 in restitution and a $100 special assessment. He must serve three years of supervised release after his federal prison term, which doesn’t begin until he finishes a 20-year state prison term for a 2012 robbery conviction. See: United States v. Teague, USDC (D.S.C.), Case No. 6:22-cr-01009.
Additional sources: WYFF, Army Times
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