A 23-year-old man pleaded not guilty on May 6 to three counts of sexual abuse of children for sexually exploiting two Billings teens using Instagram.

Freddie Betances was charged in Yellowstone County District Court. The exploitation has occurred "from a distance," a prosecutor with the County Attorney's Office said in court. Betances was extradited to Billings from Pennsylvania.

Betances and a 15-year-old Billings teen began communicating in November, according to charging documents. Betances directed the teen to have sexual encounters with other men, record the encounters, and then send the photos and videos to him. She complied with these requests.

Betances paid for premium Bumble, a dating app, and created a profile for the teen. He and the teen used the app to find sexual partners for her. Betances also told her to ask them for money and marijuana as payment. Payments were directed to Betances's PayPal account.

When the teen was not able to sneak out of her home to meet up with men, Betances would order her to send him "45 minutes' worth" of sexual material before he would call and "praise" her, according to court documents.

Betances then began Instagram messaging a 17-year-old friend of the 15-year-old, threatening to leak the 15-year-old's nude photographs if she did not send him explicit photos of herself. She reported that she did not believe the messages until she received explicit photographs of the 15-year-old.

Betances's bond was set at US$500,000 .

Parents, educators and lawmakers have been grappling with teen sexting for the last 15 years. In December 2008, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy and their research partners conducted a study called "Sex and Tech" that examined the role of technology in the sex lives of teens and young adults.

Over 15 years and the inventions of Instagram, Tinder, and TikTok (to name a few) later, the underlying issue remains - with more platforms and people thrown in. Widespread access to artificial intelligence has also played a role, with cases of teens using artificial intelligence to create "deepfake nudes" of their classmates.

Earlier this year, CEOs of Meta, TikTok, X and other social media platforms testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the effects of social media on young people's lives, including the failure to protect them from online predators.

If Montana schools are expected to educate students about the dangers of drugs, new laws passed in the past few years indicate that lawmakers do not want students educated about "human sexuality" in schools.

A law requiring schools to notify parents 48 hours before any "human sexuality instruction" passed in 2021, with 65 Republican lawmakers in favor and 2 Republicans and 29 Democrats opposed. The bill defines "human sexuality instruction" as "teaching or otherwise providing information about human sexuality, including intimate relationships, human sexual anatomy, sexual reproduction, sexually transmitted infections, sexual acts, sexual orientation, gender identity, abstinence, contraception, or reproductive rights and responsibilities."

A lawsuit filed last month challenging the law, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana along with plaintiffs including the Montana School Counselors Association and the Montana Association of School Psychologists, argues that it "impairs and inhibits sex education in Montana public schools."

 - TNS