Senate committee advances ‘sextortion’ bill

Senate committee advances ‘sextortion’ bill February 6, 2025

Sen. Julie Raque Adams, R-Louisville, testifies Thursday during a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting regarding a bill to combat sexual extortion. A high-resolution photo can be found here.

FRANKFORT — Lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced a bill Thursday to combat sexual extortion in Kentucky after hearing impassioned testimony.

Sen. Julie Raque Adams, R-Louisville, is sponsor of Senate Bill 73, which she said would strengthen laws by making sexual extortion a felony and empower victims by giving them clear legal remedies to seek justice and recover damages, among other measures.

“Sexual extortion is one of the most dangerous and rapidly growing crimes targeting young people today. It is calculated, it is cruel and it thrives on fear and silence,” she said. “Too many kids today are being manipulated into situations that they don’t know how to escape from.”

Adams defined sextortion as a form of exploitation that occurs when someone obtains sexually explicit images – sometimes generated by artificial intelligence – of someone and threatens to release them unless their demands are met. That might include monetary, sexual or any other requests. Abusers often use social media platforms, online gaming sites and messaging applications to target victims.

Testifying with Adams were bill advocates Sara Collins, a Louisville-based attorney, and Lady Tee Thompson, who fights against human trafficking and advocates for human rights.

“I’m here with an appeal – a plea on behalf of our children, our communities, our humanity. The crisis of sextortion and sextortion-based trafficking is not a shadow lingering in some distant land. It is here. It is real. It is devouring the innocence of our youth,” Thompson said.

Collins said she testified on behalf of a client who is known as “Jane Doe,” and whose story is unforgettable and illustrates how important passage of the bill is.

“No one is exempt from being a victim, and predators are very difficult to identify,” she said

Collins testified that in 2020, a former Louisville Metro police detective sexually extorted at least 25 women, and she called him a “very dangerous predator.”

“He is not a registered sex offender. He has internet access. And, my client, who is one of his victims, phoned me a few months ago to tell me she ran into him in Kroger,” Collins said.

She pointed out that the bill must pass because criminal and civil law – federal or in Kentucky – inadequately addresses sexual extortion.

“Currently, sextortion is prosecuted both civilly and criminally under a patchwork of laws that really do not address the problem,” Collins said.

Sen. Matthew Deneen, R-Elizabethtown, thanked the three women who testified and said Adams’ legislative work to fight sexual assault, abuse and sexual extortion is commendable. He said he looks forward to supporting the bill on the Senate floor.

“As a former principal, I see this rampantly throughout our school systems, and I appreciate the efforts to curtail this,” he said.

Sen. Phillip Wheeler, R-Pikeville, also vice chair of the committee, said he agrees with most of the measures in the bill and “extortion in and of itself is both a criminal and a civil offense.”

Wheeler asked about a portion of the bill dealing with suicide and how it would be judged in statute.

Adams said this portion could be clarified, and she’s open to a floor amendment.

Sen. Michael J. Nemes, R-Shepherdsville, said it’s terrible that those who commit sexual extortion keep ahead “on how to do these dastardly things,” and he appreciates the legislation.

Senate Minority Caucus Chair Reginald L. Thomas, D-Lexington, said sexual extortion is very real, and he wants to do everything he can to protect his young granddaughters.

Adams said it’s time to protect children against sexual extortion and she looks forward to working on the bill as it moves forward.

“The perpetrators move faster than our laws do,” she said. “I’m excited to make this bill even stronger and better and without any unintended consequences.”

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https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/publicservices/pio/release.html#sextortion020625