An Alabama boy is among more than a dozen victims of a sexual exploitation scheme perpetrated by a New Jersey youth pastor who posed as a teenage girl online and used blackmail to get the victims to perform sex acts for him, prosecutors said.
Sean Higgins, a 31-year-old youth pastor in Palmyra, N.J., was indicted by a grand jury on 75 counts, including charges of endangering the welfare of a child, aggravated sexual assault, criminal sexual contact, cyber harassment, and obscenity to a minor, said Burlington County, N.J. prosecutor LaChia L. Bradshaw in a statement.
Higgins allegedly perpetrated the scheme in 2020, when he was a youth pastor and music leader at Harbor Baptist Church in New Jersey and serving as a teacher at the Harbor Baptist Academy, a private K-12 school in that facility.
So far, 13 victims have been identified.
The youth pastor allegedly posed as an teenage girl with the name Julie Miller on Snapchat and Instagram and befriended the underage victims. He then coaxed the victims into sending him nude pictures of themselves while Higgins sent the victims photos of a teenage girl.
Higgins would then send the victims a screenshot of their friends’ lists on social media and threaten to send the nude photos to their friends unless the victims did what he demanded, Bradshaw alleged.
In most of the cases investigated by authorities, the youth pastor would demand his victims go into a bathroom in their home and have them perform a sex act on themselves while Higgins would be recording the act.
The investigation started after a Pennsylvania youth contacted Snapchat and reported that he sent nude photos of himself to someone he believed was an unknown female but who turned out to be Higgins.
An underage boy in Alabama also reported Higgins’ behavior to authorities, said Bradshaw.
Higgins has been jailed since 2020 in New Jersey after being taken into custody at his home.
Multiple electronic devices were seized during search warrants executed at Higgins’ home and the church.