Suspect accused of blackmailing girls on Facebook held in pretrial custody
A 22-year-old man who is alleged to have blackmailed young girls into posing for sexually explicit videos by lifting their photographs from their Facebook pages and superimposing them onto the bodies of porn video stars was remanded in custody Thursday.
The suspect, who is said to belong to a wealthy and well-known family in the sportswear retail business, is alleged to have stolen the photographs of girls aged between 13 and 15. He had been under house arrest since he was apprehended on May 14, as a prosecutor and investigating magistrate had disagreed about whether he should be remanded pending trial.
The dispute was resolved by a judicial council, which deemed that the 22-year-old should remain in custody until his trial.
