VANCOUVER, Wash. — A 17-year-old Vancouver boy and former student at Union High School is accused of filming upskirt videos and hacking into social media accounts of female students to steal and share nude photos.
On Sept. 18, 2017, a school resource officer at Union High School took a statement from one of the victims. Based on that report, detectives from the Vancouver Police Department's Digital Evidence Cybercrime Unit interviewed more students at the school over the next few days.
Police served a search warrant on the phone of a 17-year-old male student at the school and found numerous upskirt videos that were shot between May and September 2017. The student was seen in at least four of the videos as the person filming the video.
According to a probable cause affidavit, the videos were shot at various locations around the school and in all of the videos, the female students were not aware the filming was happening.
The student was arrested on Sept. 22, 2017 and accused of 15 counts of first-degree voyeurism. He was booked into the Clark County Juvenile Detention Center.
A probable cause affidavit filed on Jan. 9, 2018, in Clark County Juvenile Court added more charges. The Columbian reports that court records show the student is facing four counts of first-degree computer trespass; four counts of first-degree criminal impersonation; one count of second-degree extortion; one count of second-degree possessing of depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct; and one count of dealing in depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
According to the affidavit, the student hacked into various social media accounts of 11 different female students from June 14 through October 11, 2017. Using eight of the accounts, he pretended to be the students and contacted their friends and acquaintances, asking for the passwords to their social media accounts. He was able to gain access to more accounts through this method.
Using the social media accounts he had hacked and gained access to, the student tried to acquire the passwords to the "My Eyes Only" private sections of the Snapchat accounts of six female students. He told the students he wouldn't return their accounts unless they sent him nude photos or gave him the passwords to the private section of their Snapchat accounts.
The student also created several fake social media accounts — one on Snapchat and two on Instagram — using the names of real people. Using the fake Snapchat account on Sept. 12, he asked for a nude photo from a female student, who sent him a nude photo of herself and another female student.
According to the affidavit, the student created at least three group chats, where he shared nude photos he had obtained with other male students. Police obtained nine nude photos from the phones of two male students who participated in one of the group chats. Seven female students were identified in the photos seized from the two students' phones, and all but one of the females in the photos were minors at the time.
Police believe there were at least 65 nude photos of female students posted to the group chats by the suspect, according to the affidavit.
According to a report in The Columbian, a hearing to determine if the case should be sent from juvenile court to Superior Court is set for Jan. 24, days before the student turns 18.
KGW is not naming the suspect because he has not been charged as an adult.