Sexting teens facing serious consequences

Resources on sexting

• American Academy of Pediatrics
• OnGuardOnline.gov: Tips for parents
• staysafeonline.org: From the Cyber Security Alliance
• Girl Scouts of America tips

She is only fourteen, a good student and an athlete. Yet on this particular April morning, she found herself in the defendant's chair in a Greene County Juvenile Courtroom for texting a sexually explicit photo of herself to a boyfriend.

"He kept asking me to send a picture to him and so finally, I did," said the teen, whose identity we are protecting.

The photo was sent to someone else who posted it to Instagram. Suddenly, she was called into the principal's office where police officers were waiting.

"Having to sit there and be told my right. It was pretty hard," she said. "I didn't think it could go into court or have this effect to it."

Her mother also admits, that she didn't understand the consequences.

"I didn't know that she could be a registered sex offender for sending a picture of herself," said the teen's mother. " Anxious, very anxious, never knowing what's going to happen, and feeling bad for her because you don't know what she's going through at school."

Local attorney Chris Beck is seeing more and more sexting cases in the Miami Valley.

"What used to start as a simple game of you show me yours and I'll show you mine, now has become a sexually-oriented offense," said Beck. "I've seen people charged with a simple disorderly conduct for this kind of behavior, but I've also seen them charged with a second degree felony or first degree felony which can carry the sex offender registration and major prison time for juveniles."

The latest research says one out of five teenagers have sent or posted explicit content and that is why local school districts are taking action. Most of the teens we talked with said they first heard about sexting in middle school.

"Sending something out, by no means is it going to stay private, " said Holden Duncan, a student at Fairmont High School in Kettering. "People I've known have lost a great deal from their life because of being prosecuted as a sexual offender."

Duncan and other members of the digital design class recently took part in a program to educate their peers about sexting.

"I knew it was a problem, obviously, it's very prominent right now. but when we started looking at the statistics, I was like blown away by like how many people do this," said Jessica Brock, a Fairmont High School senior.

Back in Greene County, the teenager who sent the sexually explicit photo of herself, was sentenced to probation, community service and educational classes. She already admits that she has learned a big lesson and wants to warn other kids. Read more from her interview with Natalie Jovonovich »

"Don't do this. It just makes you look bad," said the teen. "It's not worth it."'