A Grand Ledge man is accused of using several fake Facebook profiles to convince children to send him explicit photos and videos of themselves.
Police believe there were at least 10 victims, all of them from the Lansing area.
Jenny Mays, Alyssa Pietrzak and Denny Ha are just a few of the fake Facebook profiles police say 52-year-old Kevin Konen used as aliases.
Konen is accused of befriending the kids under the fake names and trading sexually explicit images, and sometimes threatening to send their nude photos to their family and friends if they didn't cooperate.
Police say there were at least 10 boys and girls he was involved with online from 2011 to April of this year. According to a Department of Justice press release, he also communicated with children in other states.
He used his alias, Jenny Mays, to pretend to be a high school girl wanting to befriend kids. Under that alias, he'd encourage the minors to take sexually explicit photos of themselves, according to the press release.
Using that alias, he would demand they send him those images or Alyssa Pietrzak, another of his aliases, would send compromising images to the minors' friends and family.
He'd also tell the victims to contact Denny Ha, a third alias, who could help them get rid of those images from websites. Denny Ha needed the children's usernames and passwords in order to access that information to "help" them, according to the release.
After receiving the login information, Konen would then search their accounts for other compromising images, according to the release.
According to court papers, once Konen convinced the child to give him their username and password, he would get access to their Facebook page, then he would find compromising photos of them, and use those for extortion.
Konen pleaded guilty in federal court to sexual exploitation and attempted sexual exploitation of a minor and possession of child pornography.
He could face 15 years in federal prison and a combined maximum of 40 years in prison, restitution, fines and other penalties, according to the release.
He is also facing seven similar charges in Eaton County.
Police do not believe Konen ever met with any child in person.
Police say Konen used Facebook Messenger and several other social media apps to communicate.
This case is part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide program to protect kids from online exploitation and abuse, according to the release.
For more information about PSC, visit projectsafechildhood.gov.
