Sacramento man sentenced for child porn. Snapchat extortion led to FBI case
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- Judge sentenced Jayson Butay to 25 years in prison for child porn.
- FBI traced Snapchat extortion to Butay after 2020 tip from police in Finland.
- Investigators found explicit images and videos on Butay’s seized laptop.
A federal judge on Monday sentenced a Sacramento man to 25 years in prison for producing and possessing child pornography, a criminal case that began with an FBI investigation into exchanges he had on Snapchat with a teenage girl in Finland.
Along with the 25-year prison sentence, U.S. District Judge William B. Shubb ordered Jayson Fernandez Butay, 30, to pay $118,278 in restitution to his victims, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento announced in a news release.
On Feb. 12, 2024, Butay pleaded guilty to one count of producing child sexual abuse material, also known as child porn, and one count of possessing child sexual abuse material.
An FBI affidavit filed Oct. 7, 2020 in support of a search warrant indicates the FBI began investigating Butay in late July 2020 after it received information from police in Finland about an alleged child pornography extortion scheme involving a 15-year-old girl in that country.
The teenage girl told police a Snapchat user known as “Ryan R” exchanged messages with her April 22, 2019. The user had just sent her a friend request. After she disclosed her name, age and country of residence, the other Snapchat user suggested she send nude photos of herself, according to the affidavit.
The girl instead sent photos of herself in underwear. Then Ryan R demanded she send nude photos of herself or he would send the photos she sent him to her family and friends, according to the affidavit. She complied with his demand and sent him photos of her upper body naked.
He then coerced the girl into sending him about 10 sexually explicit and demeaning videos of herself before she blocked the user Ryan R on Snapchat, the FBI said in the affidavit. The following day, a Snapchat user known as “Caleb R” contacted her on the social media app and told her he was the same person she had sent nude images to the previous day.
When he threatened to share the nude photos and video images she sent him if she didn’t send him more, she told her parents who told her to screenshot the last exchange of Snapchat messages, according to the affidavit. Then they reported it to police.
The FBI said it obtained records from Snapchat, Google, Sprint and Comcast that traced back to Butay.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office initially filed a criminal complaint against Butay on Oct. 9, 2020, which led to his arrest. The 15-year-old girl from Finland was not mentioned in the criminal complaint; only the alleged child porn possession. The teenage girl also was not mentioned in a superseding federal grand jury indictment, which only referenced a 9-year-old victim.
The FBI had served a search warrant at Butay’s home and found names, along with hundreds of images and videos indicative of child porn on his laptop, court records show. Federal prosecutors said Butay possessed prepubescent images of child porn.
Butay allegedly persuaded or coerced a minor, who was then 9 years old and identified as Juvenile Victim 1 in court documents, to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of creating imagery in a digital file that would be distributed, according to the indictment filed Oct. 22, 2020, in U.S. District Court Eastern District of California.
On Monday, FBI Sacramento Field Office Special Agent in Charge Sid Patel said this criminal case is an example of the serious threat “sextortionists” pose to children using social media apps.
“Online anonymity combined with the natural inexperience of youth creates a dangerous environment that parents must better understand and monitor,” Patel said in the news release. “The FBI works closely with our law enforcement partners to identify and bring these predators to justice. We urge anyone who has been targeted or victimized to come forward. You are not alone — we will help you.”
