Two Lincoln teenagers are set to go to jail this week and must stay off social media for the next 18 months after they recorded and shared video of themselves engaging in sex acts with a 17-year-old girl.
Neither of the 18-year-old men, who pleaded no contest to intruding on a person without consent, a misdemeanor, said anything at their back-to-back sentencing hearings Thursday in Lancaster County Court.
The Journal Star does not generally name people convicted of misdemeanors.
In a letter to the judge, one man said he can't be in the military now because of the conviction, calling it a "life sentence."
But that life sentence is self-imposed, Judge Laurie Yardley said, because the teen made a choice: Had he asked the girl in the video before sharing it, this wouldn't have happened.
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What the two did changed the girl's life, the judge said.
"You imposed that life sentence on her," Yardley said, before giving them each 60 days in jail. They must serve half beginning Thursday and the rest a year from now.
She also ordered them to take a victim-empathy class and to stay off social media, including Snapchat, the smartphone app the teens used to share the video.
The two could have faced much rougher penalties.
Police originally arrested them in August and accused them of manufacturing child pornography, a felony.
The girl told investigators Aug. 5 that a video of her and the two men engaging in sex acts was being shared on Snapchat and other social media, according to an arrest affidavit.
She had caught them recording with their cellphones when she was with them late July 28. She asked them to delete the videos, she said, and they promised they would.
But a week later, she learned one of them had shared a video with a Snapchat group of 10 to 15 people, she told investigators.
Two people in the chain cooperated with investigators and confirmed the girl's account.
One of the greatest challenges for law enforcement is stopping the spread of illicit photos and videos on social media or through texting, Lancaster County prosecutors said this week.
Controlling the distribution is the fundamental starting point for many child pornography investigations, Chief Deputy Lancaster County Attorney Bruce Prenda said.
If investigators can get to the end of the distribution line quickly, then prosecutors can look at alternatives to prosecution in the case, he said.
Often, cases involving minors don't rise to the prosecution level.
Before 2009, juveniles younger than 19 who voluntarily exchanged nude photos of themselves could be found guilty of possessing child pornography. Nebraska lawmakers have since changed state law to protect those young people as long as they don't share the images with anyone else.
Since then, Lancaster County prosecutors have pursued about a dozen child pornography cases each year — 10 in adult court and two in juvenile court, Prenda said. And police tend to focus on cases where the images are shared without permission.
School resource officers in Lincoln's high schools are often the first to know when minors spread the images themselves, Prenda said.
Many cases emerging from high schools — and even middle schools — involve so-called revenge porn, where a couple exchanges nude images (called "sexting") while they dated, and one of them shares the images with others after a breakup.
At Lincoln Public Schools, staffers immediately inform Lincoln police about such cases, and take their own disciplinary action after the resolution of the police's case, said Joe Wright, the district's director of security.
"We do the school-related discipline and support afterward so as not to inadvertently impact an investigation," Wright said.
An entry in the LPS handbook advises those who come into possession of child pornography to contact a trusted adult and the police, and cautions parents and students that anyone who sends or receives nude photos could face felony child pornography charges and significant penalties.
Such photos could also end up on the Internet, the handbook warns.
Minors in juvenile court that are found responsible for possession of child pornography don't have to register as sex offenders under Nebraska law. But 18-year-olds and 19-year-olds — whose cases are adjudicated in adult court — do, Prenda said.
"This is a problem that’s a lot bigger than an exchange of photos among teenagers, and I don’t think the kids are thinking through the potential ramifications," Prenda said.
Pat Condon, who is also a chief deputy Lancaster County attorney, said that's why parental involvement in these cases can be crucial.
Parents don't always understand that they also face risks, he said.
Some phones back up images from the teenager's phone onto online storage that belongs to the parent. If those images feature a nude teenager, it would make the parent in possession of child pornography, he said.
The reality that most teens have cellphones and access to instant messaging explains the proliferation of sexting among teenagers, Condon said.
"You’re not handing something to somebody,†he said. "It’s less personal."