Case Study

Runnin' After the Devil: An International Sextortion Investigation (Part 2) LIVE Stream & Recorded for On-Demand

Thursday, August 13, 2020

10:15 AM – 11:15 AM CDT

Location: Live Stream & Recorded for On-Demand

Target Audience: All Professions

Presentation Level: Intermediate

Primary Presenter(s)

Elizabeth Bigham

Special Agent
Georgia Bureau of Investigation

Co-Presenter(s)

Jacob Toulomelis

Digital Forensic Investigator
Georgia Bureau of Investigation
Peter Decklin Leary

First Assistant U.S. Attorney
Department of Justice

This presentation will detail a sextortion investigation that turned into an international investigation involving multiple minor female victims. Steven Elliott, the perpetrator, victimized at least 30 minor females for years, taunting them and exposing their sexually explicit images and videos to their friends, family, and their communities via various social media platforms. He utilized TOR (The Onion Router) to mask his identity and was successful for years. This presentation will discuss how Elliott was identified after numerous search warrants to various internet service providers proved to be dead ends due to Elliott’s masked online identity. This workshop will be streamed live as scheduled and also be recorded and available On-Demand from August 13, 2020 until December 31, 2020.

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand investigation as a whole (how it began, victim statements, etc.)
2. Identify techniques used to unmask and identify the perpetrator
3. Understand how to creatively prosecute a sextortion case when there are not specific laws relating to sextortion