A Pennsylvania high school senior is facing\u00a0hundreds of felony charges\u00a0after authorities reportedly accused him of operating a \u201clarge-scale criminal network\u201d involving sextortion and catfishing.<\/p>\n
Zachariah Abraham Meyers, 18, of McMurray \u2014 about 15 miles southwest of Pittsburgh \u2014 was arrested Friday and charged with more than\u00a0300 felonies, including trafficking in minors, sexual extortion, unlawful contact with a minor, distribution of child sexual abuse material, among other offenses, according to a court docket obtained by Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n
Police allege Meyers, a senior at Peters Township High School, used social media platforms, including TikTok and Snapchat, to lure the victims into communicating with him, according to local outlets\u00a0WTAE<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0WPXI<\/a>.<\/p>\n Investigators interviewed 30 underage boys during the probe and identified at least 21 victims, WPXI reported.<\/p>\n Authorities say Meyers used photos of other people to catfish the victims. One of the alleged false identities included was that of an adult film actress\u00a0from another country, according to WTAE and WPXI.<\/p>\n \u201cMeyers was able to deceive and coerce juvenile males into sending explicit pornographic images and videos of themselves,\u201d authorities said.<\/p>\n Zachariah Abraham Meyers is escorted by law enforcement officials after his arrest. WPXI<\/p>\n Evidence recovered from Meyers\u2019 phone allegedly linked him to the criminal activity, WPXI reported.<\/p>\n Meyers is being held at Washington County Prison pending a preliminary hearing.<\/p>\n He was denied bail and is considered both a danger to the community and a flight risk, according to the court docket.<\/p>\n In a statement provided to WTAE, the Peters Township School District\u00a0said police\u00a0informed the district of the ongoing investigation.<\/p>\n Police allege Meyers, a senior at Peters Township High School, used social media platforms, including TikTok and Snapchat, to lure the victims into communicating with him. WTAE<\/p>\n Meyers is being held at Washington County Prison pending a preliminary hearing. WTAE<\/p>\n \u201cThe Police have indicated that there is no immediate safety risk to our schools, and we will continue to cooperate fully with the investigation,\u201d the\u00a0Peters Township School District\u00a0said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe safety and well-being of our students, staff, and families remain our highest priority, and we appreciate all the efforts of the Peters Township Police in this matter.\u201d<\/p>\n The Peters Township School District and the Peters Township Police Department did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Pennsylvania high school senior is facing\u00a0hundreds of felony charges\u00a0after authorities reportedly accused him of operating a \u201clarge-scale…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2694,53387,31,56879,28,30,29,1755,267,302],"class_list":{"0":"post-120375","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-arrests","9":"tag-catfish","10":"tag-crime","11":"tag-high-schools","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","14":"tag-pennsylvania-news","15":"tag-sex-crimes","16":"tag-sex-trafficking","17":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}