Grand Jury Indicts Former Turnpike Employee on 'Sexting' Charges

A federal grand jury has indicted a former engineer with the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission on charges that he abused children by luring and extorting teenage victims to send him sexually explicit photos online.

Russell Freed, 43, of McKenzie Drive, Penn Hills, was indicted Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh on seven counts in a case that began with a investigation.

According to the indictment, Freed produced or tried to produce pictures of minors engaging in sexual conduct and possessed, received and distributed those images between Sept. 1, 2010 and May 25.

He is charged with four counts of production and attempted production of child pornography, two counts of distribution and receipt of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography, according to Ross Police.

Freed was arrested May 25 in the case that began Feb. 5, when a Ross woman and her 15-year-old daughter filed a report with Ross Police in which they accused Freed of harassing the daughter on her cell phone. The mother and daughter are not named because Patch does not identify victims of alleged sexual abuse.

The teen told police she had been contacted via text message in September by a person she initially believed to be a friend, according to a complaint filed in federal court. The messages directed her to take and send pornographic photographs of herself and send them by text message to the person who contacted her.

The person who contacted the teen threatened to distribute her photographs to others if she did not send more, according to the complaint. He also contacted the teen's mother through Facebook and demanded explicit photographs of her in exchange for not distributing the photos of her daughter, the complaint states.

From that report, investigators developed evidence linking Freed's phone to an elaborate plot to extract more sexually explicit photographs from the teen, her mother and at least two others, according to the complaint.

The other two known victims were 15 years old and 14 years old at the time the photos were taken and were friends of the teen who filed the initial complaint.

According to police, Freed used social networks to contact young boys and girls and posed as one of their peers, using a phone number of someone he knew when he demanded that they send inappropriate photos of themselves to him. Police said they haven't determined how many victims might be involved in the case.

Freed told police that the owner of the phone number used to collect the images was not involved in any criminal activity, according to the complaint.

Investigators identified Freed after posing as the teen's mother online and tracing the phone used in the text-message exchanges with the help of information that Verizon Wireless provided, the complaint states. Freed worked at the New Stanton office of the Turnpike Commission, at 2200 North Center Ave., which cooperated with the investigation, police said.

A Ross investigator and FBI agent confiscated the phone on May 25 when they stopped a Turnpike Commission vehicle Freed was driving and arrested him near his former home in Brentwood, according to the complaint. At that time, Freed acknowledged possession of that phone, investigators said in the complaint.

Freed is free on $50,000 bond. If convicted, he could face 15 to 70 years in prison and fines of as much as $1.5 million.

State, Pittsburgh and Brentwood police, the Allegheny County District Attorney's office and U.S. Postal Inspectors assisted with the investigation, which is ongoing.