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Blackmailer forced 2 Arizona teens to send him photos. Now he's going to prison for decades

Ruben Oswaldo Yeverino Rosales, 27, of Mexico has been sentenced to 34 years in prison for using online accounts to exploit two teenage girls in Arizona.

PHOENIX — A cyberstalker has been sentenced to 34 years in prison for exploiting two teenage girls in Arizona and possibly dozens of others in several more states.

Ruben Oswaldo Yeverino Rosales, 27, of Mexico was sentenced Tuesday in an Arizona courtroom after pleading guilty to cyberstalking and producing child pornography.

The defendant was extradited to Arizona in 2020 after he had been accused of blackmailing a 14-year-old girl into producing pornographic images of herself. 

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office of Arizona, the Arizona teenager had been coerced by Rosales into sending him over 600 pornographic images before he began threatening her to send more. 

Investigators with Homeland Security and the Goodyear Police Department discovered the defendant warned the juvenile he'd send the images to her relatives and classmates if she didn't continue producing more pictures.

Prosecutors say Rosales exploited another Arizona teenager by threatening to create a pornographic website of her images if she refused to keep sending him photos. 

Rosales is suspected of using social media to exploit more than 100 people, most of whom were juvenile girls who lived in the U.S. He had been charged with similar crimes in California, South Carolina, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Missouri.

As part of his plea deal in Arizona, federal prosecutors agreed to drop the charges in other jurisdictions.  

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RELATED: Missing Arizona teen found in Mexico, 2 suspects who lured her through Instagram arrested, police say

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