2009-02-06 12:04:56
By CARRIE ANTLFINGER, Associated Press Writer Carrie Antlfinger, Associated
Press Writer Thu Feb 5
MILWAUKEE An 18-year-old male student is accused of posing as a girl on
Facebook, tricking at least 31 male classmates into sending him naked photos of
themselves and then blackmailing some for sex acts.
"The kind of manipulation that occurred here is really sinister in my
estimation," Waukesha County District Attorney Brad Schimel said Wednesday.
The students go to New Berlin Eisenhower High School in New Berlin, which is in
Waukesha County about 15 miles west of Milwaukee.
Anthony Stancl, of New Berlin, was charged Wednesday with five counts of child
enticement, two counts of second-degree sexual assault of a child, two counts
of third-degree sexual assault, possession of child pornography, repeated
sexual assault of the same child, and making a bomb threat.
Stancl's attorney, Craig Kuhary, said Stancl plans to plead not guilty to the
charges and hopes to reach a plea agreement with the district attorney
"It's too early in the case for me to make a statement, other than the fact at
some point we are going to go into events that had taken place earlier that
might have had some impact on what he did here," he said. He wouldn't go into
specifics.
The incidents allegedly happened from spring 2007 through November, when
officers questioned Stancl about a bomb threat he allegedly sent to teachers
and wrote about on a school's bathroom wall. It resulted in the closing of New
Berlin Eisenhower Middle and High School.
According to the criminal complaint, Stancl first contacted the students
through the social networking site Facebook, pretending to be a girl named
Kayla or Emily.
The boys reported that they were tricked into sending nude photos or videos of
themselves, the complaint said.
Thirty-one victims were identified and interviewed and more than half said the
girl with whom they thought they were communicating tried to get them to meet
with a male friend to let him perform sex acts on them.
They were told that if they didn't, she would send the nude photos or movies to
their friends and post them on the Internet, according to the complaint. Stancl
allegedly used the excuse to get the victims to perform repeated acts, the
complaint said.
Seven boys were identified in the complaint by their initials as either having
to allegedly perform sex acts on Stancl or Stancl on them. The complaint said
Stancl took photos with his cell phone of the encounters.
Officers found about 300 nude images of juvenile males on his computer,
according to the complaint. Prosecutors said the victims were as young as 15.
A preliminary hearing for Stancl has been scheduled for Feb. 26. The maximum
penalty if convicted on all charges is nearly 300 years in prison.