Illinois Man Threatened Teen Over Sexual Images, Sex Meet-Up: Feds

ILLINOIS — A southern Illinois man faces felony charges after federal authorities claim he threatened a teenage girl in California and her family if she did not meet up with him to have sex and provide him with sexually explicit photos of herself.

Dakota Griffin, 33, of Benton, faces prosecution on a sex charge after federal officials determined that he made the threats against a teenage girl he met on a dating app while pretending to be someone else, authorities said in a federal criminal complaint.

Griffin is charged with the attempted production of child pornography after authorities said he exchanged messages over the phone, text and video streaming with a 16-year-old girl over the span of a month in 2021. In a 29-page criminal complaint, federal officials said that Griffin maintained contact with the girl in which he identified himself as not only himself but as other people by using false names numerous times.

Griffin was charged as part of a federal investigation of eight California men who were charged with child sexual exploitation.

Authorities said that in the exchanges with the teen, Griffin repeatedly threatened the girl and her family unless she created nude photos of herself and traveled to meet Griffin for the purpose of having sex. Federal authorities said the girl created the images, which she texted to Griffin, and had planned to meet him for sex before her family stopped her from doing so, according to the criminal complaint.

In interviews, Griffin told FBI officials that he told the girl that he would hang her from a tree, kill her, shoot her or set her on fire if she did not do what he asked, according to the criminal complaint.

The criminal complaint also said that Griffin reached out to the girl as Jesus “Jose” Santana on a dating app in March 2021. Three days later, according to the complaint, Griffin contacted the girl and told her he was a hospital worker and that Santana was unconscious in a hospital after being beaten and raped. He told the girl that he had gotten her number off Santana’s phone.

He then contacted the girl and introduced himself as Dakota Griffin, and said he had found Santana on the floor of a gas station bathroom after Santana had been poisoned, according to officials. The complaint said that the girl believed Santana was being held captive by Griffin and possibly others.

A short time later, Griffin then reached out to the girl claiming to be the hospital worker and said that he would kill Santana and come after her if she did not send him 100 explicit photos of herself, 50 of which were to be nude photographs.

In April 2021, Griffin, according to the criminal complaint, contacted the girl as himself and said he would release Santana if she agreed to become his girlfriend and "move in with me and do whatever I tell you to do," the criminal complaint states, adding “for the rest of your life and we will get married and have a family.”

After further threatening the girl, Griffin contacted her again and said that Santana was killed in Griffin’s house, which he then burned down to destroy evidence. He then told the girl that she was the reason Santana had been killed and why Griffin had lost $56,000 because he had burned his house down, according to the complaint.

He then threatened to kill the girl’s family if she did not travel to Illinois to have sex with Griffin, and said he would hang her family members unless she agreed to do as he asked. The girl later told federal authorities that she believed Griffin to be part of the Ku Klux Klan after he told her that he and others would kill her family in front of her if she did not follow his instructions.

In the fall of 2021, federal agents obtained a search warrant for Griffin’s home in Benton, at which evidence was collected, which led to the charges being filed.