A Torry woman threatened to expose a cheating boyfriend if he didn’t pay her £100 to stop her sending a Snapchat photo of him in her bed to his girlfriend.
Levi Laurenson, 24, met her extortion victim at a taxi rank on Union Street, Aberdeen, following a night out in the city centre.
She invited the man back to her flat, where she took a compromising picture of him.
Days later, Laurenson contacted the man to demand he pay her £100 and threatened to send it to his partner if he didn’t.
The man paid his blackmailer £70, but when he asked her to also delete the picture from Snapchat itself, Laurenson said it would cost him even more.
Aberdeen street meet turns into Snapchat sextortion for cheating boyfriend
Fiscal depute Sean Ambrose described to Aberdeen Sheriff Court how the pair’s chance encounter in March last year soon descended into sextortion.
“They went back to the accused’s property and a photograph was taken of the complainer in bed,” he said.
“The accused thereafter sent the complainer a message saying, ‘Pay me £100 or I’ll send this to your girlfriend’. She then provided the complainer with her bank account details.”
The man agreed to send Laurenson £50, with a further £20 to be sent when she provided proof that she had deleted the photograph.
Laurenson sent the man a video of her deleting the picture and he sent her the full £70.
But when he contacted her again – asking if she had deleted the picture from her Snapchat messages- Laurenson demanded an additional £20 for doing so.
She then sent him another video of her deleting that picture, which brought the total amount that the man paid her to £90.
Torry extortionist Levi Laurenson claimed her threat started as a ‘joke’
Appearing in the dock, Laurenson pled guilty to one charge of extortion.
Defence solicitor Michael Burnett told the court his client had initially only been “trying for a joke” to extort the man but had “followed through”.
Mr Burnett said: “It’s something that she much regrets,” adding that Laurenson had “been very anxious about coming to court”.
Sheriff Rhona Wark ordered Laurenson, of North Balnagask Road, Aberdeen, to repay her victim £90 by imposing a compensation order on her.
She also placed the offender on a structured deferred sentence for Laurenson to prove she could behave herself for six months.
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