Fort Lauderdale man is sentenced to 40 years for ‘sextortion’ of girls
A Fort Lauderdale man was sentenced Tuesday to 40 years in prison for using his Instagram accounts to manipulate seven girls into sending him sexually explicit images and then threatening to expose them through “sextortion” if they didn’t give in to his demands.
Breshawn Hamilton, 21, coerced some of the underage girls into having sex with him, including extorting a 13-year-old into getting into a car in the parking lot of her home, where he and a friend committed statutory rape, according to federal court records.
A Fort Lauderdale 15year-old girl summed up Hamilton in a text message with, “You have a thing for talking and f------ underage girls. You threatened to expose me twice and did once. You blackmailed me into have sex with you twice which is a crime,” according to a factual statement filed with the defendant’s plea agreement.
“Those who exploit children are the worst of criminals and today’s sentence reflects that,” U.S. Attorney Tony Gonzalez said in a statement Tuesday after
U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith imposed the lengthy sentence.
That same day, a Miramar man, Andres Camilo Ruiz, 31, was also sentenced to 40 years in prison for similar internet child-porn charges by U.S. District Judge Roy Altman.
Ruiz’s offenses included production, possession and distribution of illicit childporn images, along with enticing minors. In June, he admitted he pretended to be a 12-year-old child named “June” on socialmedia platforms, where he met more than 50 children, including a 9-year-old, and tricked them into creating sexually explicit videos, according to his plea agreement.
In the Fort Lauderdale case, Hamilton pleaded guilty in August to two counts of enticing a minor, four counts of production of child pornography, three counts of sending interstate extortionate threats, and one count of possession of child pornography.
Hamilton started by preying on a girl several states away, according to the factual statement filed with his plea agreement.
From his Instagram accounts, Hamilton reached out to a 15-yearold in Houston on Oct. 24, 2019. The girl, referred to in Hamilton’s admission as Victim 7, told him her age. He said he was 19.
“Later in the conversation, Hamilton told Victim 7 that he was masturbating to pictures of her, resulting in Victim 7 sending a video of a Black female touching her naked vagina, including inserting her fingers inside the vagina,” Hamilton’s factual statement said.
“Hamilton asked for more images of her, stating ‘show me it again’ and ‘your stuff’ and ‘your private.’ ”
The next day, Hamilton ordered her to go into a school bathroom and make a FaceTime call that Hamilton would record. If she didn’t, Hamilton said, he would put the video that she had sent him the day before on Instagram, as well as send it to her family members and her boyfriend. Feeling trapped, she made the FaceTime call that Hamilton wanted. He recorded it and sent it to her, the defendant’s factual statement said.
Hamilton started on Victim 5, a Fort Lauderdale 14-year-old, on Dec. 12, 2019. By September 2020, he had coerced her into sending him a masturbation video and on Oct. 3, 2020, got her to send another.
Two days later, they talked about having sex, and Victim 5 gave Hamilton her home address. He recorded three videos of them together, including one 53-second video of a sexual encounter in the stairwell of Victim 5’s apartment complex.
When Victim 5 wasn’t answering Hamilton’s texts on Oct. 8, he sent a screenshot from one of the videos with a threatening message. She later told investigators that when she rebuffed him sexually, Hamilton threatened to break the windows of her residence and expose her images on the internet.
Homeland Security Investigations, which led the probe, praised the judge’s sentence.
“Today’s 40-year sentence sends a clear message to those looking to exploit and victimize our children,” said Anthony Salisbury, special agent in charge of HSI’s office in Miami. “We will spare no resource to find you and ensure you’re prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”