http://www.projectq.us/atlanta/teen_tried_suicide_during_sextortion_by_ga._man?gid=13497
Teen tried suicide during sextortion by Ga. man
By Matt Hennie | May 5, 2013 | 3:44 PM
A Marietta chiropractor and martial arts instructor doing a 30-year stretch for coercing teen guys through social media into creating gay porn pushed one of victims so hard that it drove him to attempt suicide and pen a disturbing poem.
The new details about the case of Michael Macaluso (photo) -- sentenced to 30 year in federal prison in March 2011 -- surfaced in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's gripping look into sextortion. That's how Sally Yates, the U.S. Attorney in Atlanta, describes Internet predators who stalk their victims on social media.
Macaluso, now 41, coerced and extorted teenage males, ages 14 and 15 in New Jersey and Connecticut, into swapping increasingly graphic photos before convincing them to do videos. Macaluso posted some of the videos online. Sometimes he posed as a teen girl; other times as a guy. In one case, he threatened to show the nude photos to the teen’s high school classmates. In a second case, he schemed to convince a teen to film a gay sex scene. In both incidents, the teens went to police.
The 14-year-old victim from New Jersey, Zac, was pushed to send a video every day to Macaluso, posing as a 16-year-old girl named Aimee, and take pictures and videos of Zac and another teen engaged in gay sex.
The exploitation drove Zac to suicide, according to new details reported by the AJC.
Zac said it got so bad that at one point he wrote a suicide note and got his dad’s gun. He put it to his head and pulled the trigger, but the safety was on, he said. He removed the safety and pulled the trigger again, but there was no bullet in the chamber.
Zac said he took that as a sign he should continue living. But it also meant that Macaluso continued his torment several months more, until Zac’s mom looked through his phone.
Zac expanded on the impact of Macaluso's scheme in a poem.
At Macaluso’s sentencing hearing, Zac, by then a 19-year-old college student, read from a poem he had written:
“…Every day on the computer I had no life,
I cut myself with a knife,
Being forced to do things that made me cry,
Every day I wanted to say goodbye.
Pictures turned into videos, he told me what to do,
He strung me along like a puppet, I hated my life times two… ”
Teen tried suicide during sextortion by Ga. man
By Matt Hennie | May 5, 2013 | 3:44 PM
A Marietta chiropractor and martial arts instructor doing a 30-year stretch for coercing teen guys through social media into creating gay porn pushed one of victims so hard that it drove him to attempt suicide and pen a disturbing poem.
The new details about the case of Michael Macaluso (photo) -- sentenced to 30 year in federal prison in March 2011 -- surfaced in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's gripping look into sextortion. That's how Sally Yates, the U.S. Attorney in Atlanta, describes Internet predators who stalk their victims on social media.
Macaluso, now 41, coerced and extorted teenage males, ages 14 and 15 in New Jersey and Connecticut, into swapping increasingly graphic photos before convincing them to do videos. Macaluso posted some of the videos online. Sometimes he posed as a teen girl; other times as a guy. In one case, he threatened to show the nude photos to the teen’s high school classmates. In a second case, he schemed to convince a teen to film a gay sex scene. In both incidents, the teens went to police.
The 14-year-old victim from New Jersey, Zac, was pushed to send a video every day to Macaluso, posing as a 16-year-old girl named Aimee, and take pictures and videos of Zac and another teen engaged in gay sex.
The exploitation drove Zac to suicide, according to new details reported by the AJC.
Zac said it got so bad that at one point he wrote a suicide note and got his dad’s gun. He put it to his head and pulled the trigger, but the safety was on, he said. He removed the safety and pulled the trigger again, but there was no bullet in the chamber.
Zac said he took that as a sign he should continue living. But it also meant that Macaluso continued his torment several months more, until Zac’s mom looked through his phone.
Zac expanded on the impact of Macaluso's scheme in a poem.
At Macaluso’s sentencing hearing, Zac, by then a 19-year-old college student, read from a poem he had written:
“…Every day on the computer I had no life,
I cut myself with a knife,
Being forced to do things that made me cry,
Every day I wanted to say goodbye.
Pictures turned into videos, he told me what to do,
He strung me along like a puppet, I hated my life times two… ”
https://www.justice.gov/archive/usao/gan/press/2011/03-24-11b.html
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Online Child Predator Sentenced to 30 Years in Prison
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 24, 2011
Posed as Teenager to Lure Other Teens to Produce Pornographic Images
ATLANTA, GA - MICHAEL MACALUSO, 38, of Marietta, Georgia, was sentenced late today by United States District Judge Richard W. Story to serve 30 years in federal prison for coercing and extorting minors into producing sexually-explicit masochistic images and videos of themselves and sending them to him over the internet.
United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said, “This defendant personifies what should frighten every parent should be afraid of: someone masquerading on internet social media, such as Facebook and MySpace, as an innocent, curious teenager looking to make new friends. In reality, he was a child predator seeking to cajole minors into sending him pornographic images of themselves. This type of exploitation of children and their social media is yet another tactic used by child predators.”
MACALUSO was sentenced to serve 30 years in prison, to be followed by a lifetime of supervised release. MACALUSO will be required to register as a sex offender upon his release from custody. MACALUSO was convicted of the charges by a jury after a trial in December, 2010.
According to United States Attorney Yates, the charges and other information presented in court: MACALUSO, a Marietta-area chiropractor and martial arts instructor by trade , would pose on-line as a teenage boy or girl and attempt to befriend young teen boys in an effort to get them, ultimately, to generate sexually-explicit photos and videos of themselves. Some of the videos MACALUSO then convinced his victims to make have since been distributed across the internet.
MACALUSO befriended at least two boys on-line. For one, he posed as a young teenage boy; for the other, young teenage girls. With both his victims, he engaged in friendly chat for several sessions, eventually sending an unremarkable photo of the false persona he had adopted and requesting the same from his victims. Gradually, MACALUSO shifted the conversations towards the sexual, and began sending photos of partially and then completely nude boys and girls, claiming that they were pictures of the personas he had adopted. Having grown comfortable with the “friend” they thought they were chatting with, the victims reciprocated.
Both victims ultimately went to the police, one when MACALUSO began to threaten to share the nude photos with all of the victim’s high school classmates and the other when his parents learned of MACALUSO’s scheme to convince this second victim to film a sex scene with another boy MACALUSO had met on-line. Many of the videos recovered involved the victims engaging in sexually-explicit masochistic conduct. MACALUSO’s computers had thousands of images and videos of other similar-aged boys doing similar things. At least one other victim has been positively identified.
This case was investigated by Special Agents of the GBI, as well as officers from the Marietta (GA), Hamilton (NJ), and Suffield (CT) Police Departments.
Assistant United States Attorneys Jill Steinberg, Corey Steinberg, and Robert McBurney prosecuted the case.
For further information please contact Sally Q. Yates, United States Attorney, or Charysse L. Alexander, Executive Assistant United States Attorney, through Patrick Crosby, Public Affairs Officer, U.S. Attorney's Office, at 404-581-6016. The Internet address for the HomePage for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia is www.justice.gov/usao/gan.
United States Attorneys Office - Archive
SEARCH THE ARCHIVE
Home » News » Press Release
News and Press Releases
Online Child Predator Sentenced to 30 Years in Prison
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 24, 2011
Posed as Teenager to Lure Other Teens to Produce Pornographic Images
ATLANTA, GA - MICHAEL MACALUSO, 38, of Marietta, Georgia, was sentenced late today by United States District Judge Richard W. Story to serve 30 years in federal prison for coercing and extorting minors into producing sexually-explicit masochistic images and videos of themselves and sending them to him over the internet.
United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said, “This defendant personifies what should frighten every parent should be afraid of: someone masquerading on internet social media, such as Facebook and MySpace, as an innocent, curious teenager looking to make new friends. In reality, he was a child predator seeking to cajole minors into sending him pornographic images of themselves. This type of exploitation of children and their social media is yet another tactic used by child predators.”
MACALUSO was sentenced to serve 30 years in prison, to be followed by a lifetime of supervised release. MACALUSO will be required to register as a sex offender upon his release from custody. MACALUSO was convicted of the charges by a jury after a trial in December, 2010.
According to United States Attorney Yates, the charges and other information presented in court: MACALUSO, a Marietta-area chiropractor and martial arts instructor by trade , would pose on-line as a teenage boy or girl and attempt to befriend young teen boys in an effort to get them, ultimately, to generate sexually-explicit photos and videos of themselves. Some of the videos MACALUSO then convinced his victims to make have since been distributed across the internet.
MACALUSO befriended at least two boys on-line. For one, he posed as a young teenage boy; for the other, young teenage girls. With both his victims, he engaged in friendly chat for several sessions, eventually sending an unremarkable photo of the false persona he had adopted and requesting the same from his victims. Gradually, MACALUSO shifted the conversations towards the sexual, and began sending photos of partially and then completely nude boys and girls, claiming that they were pictures of the personas he had adopted. Having grown comfortable with the “friend” they thought they were chatting with, the victims reciprocated.
Both victims ultimately went to the police, one when MACALUSO began to threaten to share the nude photos with all of the victim’s high school classmates and the other when his parents learned of MACALUSO’s scheme to convince this second victim to film a sex scene with another boy MACALUSO had met on-line. Many of the videos recovered involved the victims engaging in sexually-explicit masochistic conduct. MACALUSO’s computers had thousands of images and videos of other similar-aged boys doing similar things. At least one other victim has been positively identified.
This case was investigated by Special Agents of the GBI, as well as officers from the Marietta (GA), Hamilton (NJ), and Suffield (CT) Police Departments.
Assistant United States Attorneys Jill Steinberg, Corey Steinberg, and Robert McBurney prosecuted the case.
For further information please contact Sally Q. Yates, United States Attorney, or Charysse L. Alexander, Executive Assistant United States Attorney, through Patrick Crosby, Public Affairs Officer, U.S. Attorney's Office, at 404-581-6016. The Internet address for the HomePage for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia is www.justice.gov/usao/gan.