Life Sentence for Internet Blackmailer after Suicide of 12-year-old Girl: Fabulous 185 Charges

belfast - An internet blackmailer pretending to be a teenage girl has been sentenced to life by a court in Northern Ireland. He drove a 12-year-old American girl to suicide.

The 26-year-old Alexander McCartney admitted to 185 charges of online child abuse involving seventy children. Posing as a teenage girl on platforms like Snapchat and Instagram, he befriended girls in multiple countries. It is one of the largest 'catfish' cases ever, according to The Telegraph.

He encouraged his victims to send explicit photos or perform sexual acts, which he recorded. He then began to blackmail them. He forced the American girl Cimarron Thomas to involve her younger sister in the act, leading her to shoot herself with her father's gun.

McCartney, who studied computer science, will have to spend at least until 2039 behind bars according to the rules. His actions caused 'terrible and catastrophic damage to young girls' on a large scale, said the judge. 'The defendant was ruthless. He ignored multiple opportunities to stop. (...) He lied and lied and lied again.'