WESTLAND (WWJ) - A 25-year-old Westland man is accused of trying to pay a Twitter user for nude photos of teens and asked the user to "bait" other underage boys into sending more of the same content, federal agents revealed last week.
In a criminal complaint filed on Thursday, Sept. 29, Christopher Curtis, 25, of Westland is accused of receiving, producing, and possessing child pornography, WDIV reported.
According to court documents, the FBI learned of Curtis through an investigation into a Maryland man accused of distributing sexually explicit photos of children online.
After searching the man's home in Baltimore on April 21, 2021, the man admitted to the accusations and said he managed child porn over Twitter.
He said he would negotiate a price and send links via cloud storage apps. Purchasers would then pay him for the content through the CashApp.
Federal agents executed a search warrant on the man's Twitter account in July 2021 and discovered messages between other users with one account linking back to Curtis in Michigan, court records showed via WDIV.
The messages showed a chat began between Curtis and the man on the East Coast back on June 26, 2020 at precisely 8:53 p.m.
The Baltimore man has been labeled as 'Individual A.' The conversation between the two men was made over two hours. It is as follows:
WARNING TO READERS: Some of the messages in this conversation are disturbing.
Curtis: What’s this file called? Do you sell or trade?
Individual A: He’s a lacrosse boy. I posted more of him.
Curtis: May I have the file via trading, or I’ll buy it?
Individual A: I have a file on this kid from Periscope. I baited him but most of his videos are from his live Periscopes.
Curtis: I’ll take him. Do you have any other young guys, like lax boy that show *** too?
Individual A: I have a file on a hot younger smooth wrestler boy. He’s not my bait tho. I’m not sure who baited him. I got his file from Telegram.
Curtis: mm yeah I’ll take him too. Also, if I find another guy would you be willing to try baiting him for me?
Individual A: OK can you do $45 for both?
Curtis: Yea and deal
Individual A: Ok CashApp me and I’ll send the links
Curtis: Sent.
Federal agents were able to confirm the payment through CashApp records. The money was sent from an account of the name “theoneandonly,” officials said.
According to the criminal complaint, agents in Maryland said the lacrosse player referenced in the Twitter message was identified as a 14-year-old boy in Maryland. The wrestler mentioned in the exchange was another 14-year-old boy out of North Carolina.
During their conversation, agents said Curtis requested that the Baltimore man help him "bait" other boys, or trick underage teens into sending sexually explicit images.
Federal agents described the process of "baiting" in the federal complaint.
“Based on training and experience, internet users who bait others will often do so posing as a person the target may be interested in and entice them to produce nude or sexual images,” an FBI special agent. “Some users will ask or pay others who are more experienced to act on their behalf to entice targets to produce images for them.”
Curtis offered to trade some of his files in the message exchange, stating he had "a lot of content" that he purchases and sells online, agents said.
Agents visited Curtis' current home in Detroit on Wednesday, Sept. 28 on a search warrant.
They were able to recover Curtis' phone and confirmed the CashApp payment made to the Baltimore man, officials said.
According to the complaint, Curtis admitted to starting Twitter accounts to look for photos of naked boys and conversing with other to pay for or give out sexually explicit content showing children.
As reported by WDIV, Curtis told agents he bought thousands of sexually explicit images and videos of children then deleted his social media accounts.
He also admitted to "baiting" underage boys by posing as a woman in her 20s on Snapchat and other social media apps and trick boys into sending him photos and videos of them naked, the complaint said.
Curtis also requested the boys send content of them sexually touching themselves and "engaging in sex acts with household objects," officials added via WDIV.
According to officials, Curtis said he was actively messaging boys online until March of 2022 and said he deleted all the content he used to bait in June 2022.