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More Victims Come Forward In 'Sexploitation' Case

ROSS TOWNSHIP (KDKA) -- More victims have come forward after a man was charged with duping young women into sending him nude photos of themselves from their computers and cell phones.

Russell Freed is accused of posing as a woman on Facebook, gaining the confidence of innocent young girls, then getting them to pose nude for him.

"He would learn about their daily lives," Ross Township Police Detective Brian Kohlhepp said. "He would learn about their habits, what they enjoyed to do and then he would contact these people as one of their friends."

Freed works for the Turnpike Commission at their office in New Stanton. Federal investigators say phone records show he sometimes contacted the girls from his office. Then he began contacting boys too.

"Once he would exchange pictures with boys, he would advise the boys that he was actually bisexual and seek pictures of females that they had," Kohlhepp said.

Now police say new victims are coming forward. More charges are expected. And it should be a lesson to everyone.

"When you take pictures and send them to people, you can't control that and these pictures really can come back to haunt you," Kohlhepp said.

Police say the alleged scheme had been going on as far back at the fall of 2010. It's unknown how many total victims there might be.

Freed remains in the Allegheny County Jail pending a hearing in front of a federal magistrate on Friday.

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