Paul Ryan Intern Adam Savader Arrested

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Adam Savader, a former intern for Paul Ryan, was arrested by the FBI and charged in a weird sexual extortion scheme:

A 21-year-old Great Neck, New York man was charged in a criminal complaint in the Eastern District of Michigan with Internet extortion and cyber stalking, announced United States Attorney Barbara L. McQuade. . . .
According to the affidavit, from May 2012 through February 2013, Adam Paul Savader sent anonymous text messages using Google Voice numbers to 15 women stating that he had nude photographs of the women and threatening to distribute the nude photographs to the women’s friends and family members unless the women sent him more nude photographs of themselves. Savader sent some of the victims links to a photo-sharing website where nude pictures of the victims had been posted.
The case was brought to the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation by detectives from the Ann Arbor Police Department, who received a complaint from a victim stating that she had received threatening messages from a person who had illegally obtained nude photographs of her from her e-mail account. Detectives with the Ann Arbor P.D. partnered with FBI agents to investigate the case and together identified 15 victims in Detroit; Washington, D.C.; and Long Island, New York.
If convicted on these charges, Savader faces a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment.

Via Adam Steinbaugh who explain the details:

[A] recently-unsealed complaint in the Eastern District of Michigan . . . alleges, essentially, that a New York man — Adam Paul Savader — used a variety of Google Voice numbers to text women under the monicker “John Smith.”  ”Smith” told the women that he had nude photos of them (or, in one victim’s case, her mother) and that he would post more online if they did not send more nude photos.  He allegedly threatened to send the photos to their family members, sorority sisters, and the Republican National Committee, telling one that everyone in “D.C” would see the nude photos.  The unidentified victims apparently attended the same college as Savader.
On Twitter, Adam Savader brags that he was “Formerly @PRyan’s sole intern on @MittRomney’s campaign and a @newtgingrich campaign staffer” and notes that his website is savader.com.  The whois registration for the site lists his abode as being the same Great Neck, NY address as the address affiliated with the IP address used to register many of the online accounts allegedly used in the sextortion plot.

Savader’s Twitter account has not yet been deleted.

UPDATE: Reading the complaint — and trust me, it’s a must-read — I’m wondering: Do all college girls now have naked photos online?

Hey, I could have a great future as a Republican intern . . .

UPDATE II: Welcome, Twitchy readers! It turns out, because I know everybody, I’m just one degree of separation from Adam Savader:

There is a lesson here about the perils of the digital age: Anything you put on the Web — even uploaded to private accounts — can be accessed, if someone with enough skills really wants to get to it bad enough. And naked pictures? Yeah, don’t do those. Ever. Because that boyfriend you’re sending them to may not be your boyfriend forever.

 


77 comments

  6. Man, that’s some industrial-strength dumb there. Both the intern and anyone who would fall for that.

  13. So this is just me being obtuse here, but… if you don’t want nude pictures of yourself circulating, then why would you, oh hell, take them and post them in the first place? Are people really so stupid as to think they have any control over anything after they click “send?”

    This reminds me of that classic piece from the Onion: “I wish all these gay men would stop sucking my c**k.”

  14. Interesting how they tracked all those IP’s, texts, etc. from a R staffer but nothing yet for any swatting victims.

  17. Please give me 3 good reasons to take nude photos of yourself and upload them to the internet?

    1. It will make your parents proud.
    2. It will enhance your career prospects.
    3. It will lead to people reading the articles you post along-side the pictures.

    4. It will make RSMcCain happy.

  19. Really. They shouldn’t publish those photos. Just e-mail them to me. But only the hot ones.

  20. Yeah I know him. He worked for the Newt campaign. He never really struck as me as creepy, but very ackward. Also he was on social media constantly during work hours, always.

  21. It’s weird. At 52, I have gone my entire lifetime without knowing one of these people. They must have all entered public service. Idiots.

  25. Maximum of FIVE YEARS? For 15 counts of blackmail, and at least 15 counts of illegal hacking?

    That comes to 60 days per felony. Can’t beat the volume discounts!

  28. oh hey former classmate. glad we were nothing more than acquaintances and you didn’t have any desire to look up my university email prefix

  29. I’m confused. If the pictures are already publicly available, how is it a crime to say you’re going to let others know about it? Now if HE put those pictures up without their permission then that’s a different story. But that’s not how the “threat” reads.

  33. Yes; It’s a sad commentary on the morals of people today that many would have to worry that someone had nude pictures of them from the internet.

  44. they werent uploaded to the internet. they were taken on a phone, sent to a self-email address, and then adam hacked into the email. they were sent to NO ONE. get your facts straight.

  49. I always wondered about Mannix. I mean, the guy took more blows to the head than Chuck Wepner. It was in every freaking show, right after “Mannix goes snooping for clues” and followed by four commercials and “Mannix wakes up, dazed.”

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