JORDAN DEMAY’S FATHER John DeMay speaks Sept. 25 about legislation aimed to curb sexual extortion during a news conference in the Anderson House Office Building in Lansing. (Anna Liz Nichols/Michigan Advance)

What criminals without conscience intended for shame and destruction has turned into an opportunity for education and compassion, John DeMay said Friday after House Democrats unanimously passed legislation to criminalize sexual extortion and create awareness in schools.

In March 2022, DeMay’s son, Jordan DeMay, 17, had thought he was messaging a young woman on Instagram, agreeing with her requests for explicit photos of himself. But it turned out international criminals had tricked Jordan into sending the photos for the purpose of sexually extorting him, also known as sextortion.

The Marquette teen killed himself six hours after getting into contact with the criminals.

Law enforcement at the state and federal level have called for more awareness for the epidemic of sextortion that can affect individuals across ages, but particularly impacts kids who can be manipulated through shame and lies into not seeking help which can turn lethal when they feel like there’s no hope of getting help.

“The law enforcement community is calling this an epidemic, and it really is, because the detectives are getting bombarded with this stuff. It’s just every day on their desk, and there’s a lot of it goes unreported,” DeMay said. “But we’re trying to peel that back and say, ‘Hey, listen, this isn’t your fault. These people are trained to do this. They’re professionals at what they do. Don’t feel like you’re the only one, because you’re not.'”

JORDAN DEMAY (Photo provided by family)

More than 13,000 reports of online financial sextortion of minors were received by the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations between October 2021 to March 2023. At least 20 suicides occurred in these reports with the FBI saying this year that reports of sextortion of minors are on the rise.

Sextortion isn’t specifically criminalized in Michigan law but House Bills 5887, 5888 and 5889 would create criminal penalties and create educational resources that could be distributed at schools on the dangers of sexual extortion and how to access help. The penalties would range, with a maximum of 25 years in prison.

The individuals who manipulated DeMay’s son Jordan into killing himself were extradited to the United States and prosecuted and DeMay said the case revealed that the two men learned of Jordan’s death and continued their manipulations.

“And they continued to do it. The next day or two after they were just right back at it and in our specific case, there was a ‘victim 2′ in the’ federal indictment… and victim 2 was victimized verbatim, with the same exact script as the one used on Jordan,” DeMay said. “When we talk about disregard for life, we have guys say ‘go ahead and kill yourself’… and then they find out that he’s dead and go on the next day and start doing it all over the exact same way they did it the day before. That’s the disregard for life.”

The bills all passed 56-0 with unanimous support from Democrats. Republicans did not vote on the bills, nor any other bills starting at noon as the first bill in the package was brought up for a vote Friday in protest of House Democrats not taking up bills on the state’s minimum wage laws, earned sick leave and road funding.

Republicans are set to take over the majority of the state House from Democrats next year and there has been significant turmoil over bipartisanship in passing legislation in the state House.

Speaker-elect for next session Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, suggested that Democrats’ refusal to come to the table on issues important to Republicans prevents the parties from coming together on legislation that would benefit the entire state.

“The first thing they put up is some bill that all 110 of us would vote for,” Hall said.

Rep. Jon Fitzgerald, D-Wyoming, said he had hoped that the package, which multiple members of law enforcement have voiced support for, could have been an issue all members of the chamber could get behind, but at the end of the day the chamber worked to protect kids successfully.

Bad actors operated on shame, getting Jordan who had been a well-loved 17-year-old with his whole life ahead of him to feel so helpless that he thought his only solution was to end his life.

“In Jordan’s case, his legacy is going to be preventing other people from experiencing what he did,” Fitzgerald said before the House voted through the bills. “These bills will, in fact, save lives, especially of our young people here in the state of Michigan.”

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