Bensalem man charged with soliciting nude photos from underage girls now faces federal charges
Jonathan Brodecki was taken into custody Tuesday morning by federal agents. He has been charged with possessing child pornography, manufacturing child pornography, and related crimes.
As a Bensalem man prepared to face a district judge Tuesday, accused of coercing seven teenage girls to send him nude photos, federal agents put him in handcuffs and charged him with manufacturing child pornography, possessing child pornography, and related crimes.
Jonathan Brodecki, 21, was arraigned on those charges Tuesday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia.
His attorney, John J. Fioravanti Jr., declined to comment on the new charges. Brodecki was taken into custody after his arraignment before Magistrate Judge Lynne A. Sitarski.
In light of the federal indictment, Bucks County Assistant District Attorney Bridget Murphy withdrew the local charges against Brodecki during a brief hearing Tuesday.
The investigation into Brodecki began in January, when Bensalem police detectives received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about a Snapchat user who had been extorting a 15-year-old girl, according to an affidavit of probable cause for his arrest. The account “jack_goodric” purportedly belonged to a 14-year-old boy, and had befriended the girl in late December.
In reality, Bucks County prosecutors said after his arrest in May, Brodecki was operating the account and communicating with that girl, as well as at least eight others, between November and December. He later confessed to police, and said he knew at the time that the girls were underage, according to the affidavit.
Chat logs and other information revealed that Brodecki had used social media to extort nine teenage girls between the ages of 13 and 15, seven of whom had sent him explicit photos and videos, the document said.
The first girl sent the account photos of her bare breasts and other explicit images at the user’s request, according to the affidavit. When the girl stopped communicating with “jack,” he threatened to send the photos and videos “all out to your friends and school.”
One victim, 13, wrote in a Snapchat conversation that she was distraught at the thought of the images leaking, and begged Brodecki not to send them to others, saying she would “do anything” to prevent that. She told him she had been so upset about that prospect that she tried to take her own life and had recently been released from the hospital.
Some of the girls shared images, the affidavit said, after Brodecki sent them pictures of a man’s penis and other sexually explicit materials, the affidavit said.