HAINESPORT, N.J. (1010 WINS) — A former New Jersey youth pastor was sentenced to 25 years in state prison on Monday after admitting to duping four young boys into sending him nude photos and then blackmailing them into performing sex acts on camera.
Sean Higgins, 32, pleaded guilty to four counts of endangering the welfare of children in January, according to the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office.
Higgins committed the crimes in 2020 while serving as the youth pastor and music director at Harbor Baptist Church, a congregation at Harbor Baptist Academy. He also worked as a teacher at the private K-12 school.
According to prosecutors, none of the charges involved members of the church or students at the school.
The investigation began in 2020 after a youth in Berks County, Pennsylvania, contacted Snapchat and reported that he sent nude photos of himself to someone he believed to be an unknown female, prosecutors said. The unknown female, who was actually Higgins, had threatened to expose his nude photos after they exchanged pictures.
Investigators said Higgins would adopt the persona of a teenage girl and use Snapchat and Instagram to begin a conversation with a boy, introducing himself as Julie Miller. After establishing a rapport, he would suggest that they trade photos. Higgins would then send pictures of an unidentified teenage girl.
In return, Higgins would often receive nude photos from the victims. Immediately upon receiving those images, he would take a screenshot of the victim's friends list that was visible on the forward-facing social media platform, prosecutors said. Higgins would send that screenshot back to the victim and threaten to send the nude photos he had just received to the victim's friends list unless the victim did exactly what Higgins demanded.
In most of the cases that were investigated, Higgins then demanded that his victims go into the bathroom at their home and place the phone on the floor, or at an angle looking up, and would instruct the victims to masturbate or perform sexual acts on themselves. Higgins would record what was transpiring.
Higgins has been held in the Burlington County Jail since he was arrested at his home in October 2020.
"The crimes committed by this defendant are among the cruelest, most depraved ever prosecuted by this office," Burlington County Prosecutor LaChia L. Bradshaw said in a statement. "Some of these victims contemplated suicide to get out from under the extreme anguish that accompanied the defendant’s debauched, unrelenting demands."
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