Man gets probation for extortion scheme seeking nude photos

A 20-year-old man who disseminated on the internet nude photos of a woman who rebuffed his extortion attempts was sentenced in state court Thursday to four years of probation.

Jarred K. Kaneshiro pleaded guilty in December to second-degree extortion. In exchange for his plea, prosecutors agreed to drop a first-degree violation of privacy count against him. Both charges are Class C felonies punishable by up to five years in prison.

Kaneshiro asked the court to defer his guilty plea, giving him the opportunity to have the charge eventually dismissed.

“I regret everything I had done because it puts my future at risk. A day doesn’t go by without me thinking about my future and if it’s ruined because of my lapse in judgment,” Kaneshiro said.

Circuit Judge Shirley Kawamura decided against sending Kaneshiro to jail and said he is not likely to commit another crime. However, the judge told him she can’t let him avoid conviction, “given the hurt that you had caused to another member of our community and the long-lasting effect it will have on that victim.”

Deputy Prosecutor Chris Van Marter said Kaneshiro contacted the victim on Snapchat in March 2018. The woman told police she didn’t know Kaneshiro and couldn’t identify him through his user name. Kaneshiro told authorities he hadn’t met the victim, but obtained a picture and video of her in the nude from a friend, whom he wouldn’t identify.

Van Marter said Kaneshiro told the woman he was going to put the images on the internet if she didn’t send him more nude pictures of herself. When she refused, Kaneshiro threatened to share the images with her boyfriend.

The victim told authorities the images were intended to be private and that she had shared them only with her then-boyfriend.

Van Marter said Kaneshiro continued to demand nude pictures from the victim, telling her he was not going to leave her alone until she complied. He even specified which body parts he wanted to see, the prosecutor said. When she refused, Kaneshiro followed through on his threat and shared the images with his Snapchat “friends.”

Police verified with officials at Saint Martin’s University, the school in Washing­­ton state that Kaneshiro was attending at the time, that the defendant was the only one who used his unique school IP address. They also searched Kaneshiro’s Snapchat account and obtained a list of his friends but were not able to get enough information from the accounts to identify anyone.

“So we don’t know who he shared the images with, how many people he gave them to or whether he still has them on his phone or other devices because he didn’t disclose that,” Van Marter said.

Kaneshiro transferred to Western Oregon University and was on winter break when he pleaded guilty. Prior to Thursday’s sentencing he had told court officials of his success extorting two or three other women.

Van Marter said the city prosecutor’s office gets two to three similar cases every month but that 90% don’t get prosecuted because the victims back out for fear of embarrassment and humiliation.

“We were able to prosecute this case because the victim was willing to testify if it had gone to trial,” he said.