Boston-area man in federal custody after Metro Detroit teens report nude photo demands
Anthony Lamont Fowlkes, 40, of Malden, Massachusetts, was arrested Tuesday on five federal charges, including sexual exploitation of a child and possession of child pornography, after two Metro Detroit teenagers reported that he demanded nude images of them and threatened to post the photos online.
A Massachusetts school district said after the arrest that Fowlkes' employment with a before-and-after-school program for grade-school students has ended.
Malden police said Tuesday that they took Fowlkes into custody around 6 a.m. without incident on a federal warrant listing the five charges. Officers turned him over to Homeland Security Investigations. His initial court appearance was expected at the federal courthouse in Boston, while the case itself is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
The contact began in July, when the 15-year-old met a man online through Monkey, a social media and live video chat app, according to the criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court. The two exchanged phone numbers and moved the conversation to text messages.
Around July 15, the 15-year-old sent the man a photo of herself and the 16-year-old. That led to a series of online conversations, including audio and images, some of which were explicit.
The 16-year-old argued with the man, blocked him and stopped responding. Investigators say he continued to demand sexually explicit images from the 15-year-old, then threatened to post nude images of both girls on social media sites.
The 15-year-old told her parents.
Both teens went with the younger girl's parents on Aug. 4 to the Waterford Police Department in Michigan to report the conversations and turn over their phones for an investigation. Waterford police then brought in the Homeland Security Investigations Detroit Special Victims Group.
Investigators found conversations in which the man demanded nude images of the 15-year-old and had spoken with both teens about traveling to Massachusetts to live with him. The criminal complaint said he also tried to get money from the 15-year-old's bank account.
