Michigan lawmakers talk ‘sextortion’ legislation to address a growing threat against kids

BY ANNA LIZ NICHOLS, MICHIGAN ADVANCE

MICHIGAN—Jordan DeMay was a well-loved member of the Marquette High School community, the homecoming king and a star athlete. But in March 2022 the northern Michigan 17-year-old thought he was messaging a young woman on Instagram, complying with her request for explicit photos of himself.

DeMay killed himself six hours later. 

“He was tragically tortured,” DeMay’s father John DeMay said during a news conference Wednesday. “He was convinced and groomed into sending an explicit picture of himself, which he did and when that happened, the extortion started. It was vicious, it was consistent, it was methodical and it was purposeful.”

There was no young woman talking to DeMay, instead it was two men in Nigeria connected to more than 100 similar extortion schemes who told DeMay to kill himself.

Soliciting individuals online for explicit photos and then harassing and blackmailing them, commonly known as sextortion, is a growing problem nationwide, Michigan state Rep. Jen Hill, D-Marquette said during a news conference Wednesday talking about a package of bills to explicitly criminalize the act.

Hill noted that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has identified sextorion as particularly targeting minors, specifically boys ages 14 to 17.

Between October 2021 to March 2023, more than 13,000 reports of online financial sextortion of minors were received by the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations. These reports resulted in at least 20 suicides and the FBI remarked in 2024 that reports of sextortion on minors are rapidly increasing.

“One case is too many. One family grieving is too many,” Hill said during the news conference. “We have to act now to protect our children, to prevent more heartbreak and to make sure that no more families are going to go through this heartbreak.”

The package of bills, HB 5887, HB 5888 and HB 5889 together create specific criminal penalties for sexual extortion where none exist in Michigan, as well as implement educational resources to be distributed to schools on how to talk to students about the dangers of sexual extortion and how to get help.

“We’re sending a message to the rest of the world. ‘Michigan will not tolerate exploitation of our children, and we will not let kids go without the support they need’,” Hill said. “Schools, law enforcement and communities will have one more tool to protect our young people and to raise awareness…I’m calling on my colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans, to stand with me. This is not and should not be a partisan issue. It’s a moral issue.”

Adults that “intentionally and maliciously” threaten to distribute explicit visual material of another individual with the goal to manipulate a victim could be charged with a felony under the proposed legislation. Depending on if this is the person’s first offense or if the victim is under the age of 18 or suffers bodily harm or death, penalties vary from a possible five-year maximum prison sentence to a maximum of 20 years in prison.

If the perpetrator of sexual extortion is an individual under the age of 18, they face a misdemeanor charge that could lead to up to a year of imprisonment.

The grief of DeMay’s death and the cruelty of what he went through radiated through the community, Marquette County Sheriff Gregory Zyburt said, remembering the funeral where thousands of DeMay’s peers attended to support the family.

“You talk with any cop throughout their career, there’s three or four complaints that they took that they will never forget. This is one of them for me,” Zyburt said.

And because DeMay’s parents were willing to work with law enforcement at the time, authorities were able to achieve a historic extradition of the perpetrators from Nigeria, resulting in the pair being sentenced to more than 17 years in prison. But the lasting impact of the DeMay family is they are starting a conversation about a topic often enshrouded in shame.

“…this message has to be known by every kid out there,” Zyburt said. “It’s not the end of the world and it’s not worth taking your life.”

Sextortion of minors and other sexual crimes against children need to be talked about more, Grand Rapids Police Chief Eric Winstrom said during the news conference.

Not only are the topics of suicide and sexual violence difficult to talk about, especially when it’s about kids, Winstrom said, but members of law enforcement and the state legislature, typically older individuals, didn’t grow up with the same dangers lurking in social media and other areas of the internet.

‘To see the leaders in our state step up and [be] willing to step up in front of the cameras and have this conversation, this is going to be… very positive,” Winstrom said. “Look at the leaders that Jordan got in these rooms… The momentum that Jordan is building to make sure that we protect our children in the state of Michigan… This is so important to us and so important to the children of Michigan.”

READ MORE: 5 ways Michiganders can help prevent identity theft

This coverage was republished from Michigan Advance pursuant to a Creative Commons license.