Warrant: Nude student photos online show sex acts

Photos of nude boys and girls who authorities believe attend several Wake County high schools began showing up on the social media site in February, prompting a Wake Forest mother to call police after learning about it from her daughter.

Similar incidents were reported in eight other counties – Durham, Chatham, Johnston, Edgecombe, Pitt, Craven, Randolph and Surry counties – and the State Bureau of Investigation was called in to assist with the cases. An SBI spokeswoman said Monday that Alamance, Caswell, Cabarrus and Guilford counties also have become involved in the investigation in recent weeks.

Early on, Wake Forest police subpoenaed Facebook, which owns Instagram, for user information associated with four accounts, and according to a new search warrant, the SBI has subpoenaed information for 15 more accounts.

Seven of those 15 accounts were still active Monday, although they are all set to private.

The application for the SBI search warrant states that investigators are searching for evidence of second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor or cyber-bullying.

A parent turned over numerous screenshots of the nude photos to Wake County Public School System officials, who then made them available to investigators, according to an affidavit by an SBI agent in the application.

"Upon review of the screenshots, it was readily apparent that some of the images contained child sexual exploitation and were designed to be embarrassing to the individual pictured," the affidavit states.

Under North Carolina law, second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor is defined as exhibiting or distributing "material that contains a visual representation of a minor engaged in sexual activity."

All four of the Instagram accounts subpoenaed by Wake Forest police "contained images of child sexual exploitation, as well as many instances of nude/semi-nude images of subjects," the affidavit states.

Some of the Instagram accounts authorities are investigating had as many as 1,700 followers, allowing hundreds of people to copy the images, according to the affidavit.

"When you post something online, it's going to stay there forever," said Elvis Cervantes, a student at Broughton High School in Raleigh. "You might delete it, but somebody probably already has it."

Some students displayed a cavalier attitude about photos of them being posted online by others, while other students said they now take more precautions because of the Instagram investigation.

"I don't post any inappropriate things to my friends or any boys or anything. I think it's wrong," Broughton High student Anna Murray said.

"It would be horrible, very horrible," Broughton High student Shamaica McNeill said of having a nude photo posted online. "That's not a great thing to go through."

No arrests have been made in the case, although a Rowan County teen was charged with cyber-bullying in a similar case investigated by local police there.