Credit: Bensalem Township police
Authorities in Bensalem Township are looking to identify victims of a man accused in a ‘sextortion’ case.
Ian Pisarchuk, 26, of Bensalem Township, was charged in June with sexually extorting several victims as young as 12 years old. He has been in the Bucks County Correctional Facility on 10 percent of $2 million bail since his arrest.
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This week, Pisarchuk was charged with 40 counts, including child pornography, unlawful contact, corruption of minors, sexual extortion, stalking, terroristic threats, harassment, and cyber harassment of a child, according to the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office and a court docket. He has yet to be arraigned on the new charges.
In an affidavit of probable cause filed this week, Pisarchuk was accused of possessing sexually explicit materials of both juveniles and adults.
“The new charges stem from further forensic analysis of the defendant’s electronic devices and the cooperation of nine additional victims as young as 14 years old. In both cases, the defendant would seek to build rapport with the victims before threatening to expose or do harm to them or others if they did not comply with his demands for sexually explicit images and videos,” the district attorney’s office said in a statement.
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Investigators in late 2020 linked an IP address used to contact reported victims to Pisarchuk’s addresses. A forensic examination of Pisarchuk’s phone led to the the explicit media files featuring juveniles and adults, authorities said.
Pisarchuk used several different usernames on Snapchat to contact and extort minors and adult women. Some of the usernames were “livingfaithful” “Sportsman11, “michaelbelardin,” “nnickhogann,” and “AnotherSportsGuy,” authorities said.
Credit: Submitted
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Previously, investigators said they linked Pisarchuk to 21-year-old Lindsey Piccone, of Bensalem Township, who took her own life at Tyler State Park in Newtown Township.
In court papers, it is stated Pisarchuk told police he had spoken with Piccone on Snapchat and threatened her to obtain explicit images.
“I hurt Lindsey and forced her into an awful situation,” he allegedly wrote in a letter to her family.
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“It is bittersweet to have to report that we are filing these new ‘sextortion’ charges against this defendant” said District Attorney Matt Weintraub. “When we called out to the public for more potential victims, we were almost certain that more victims were out there. It saddens me that our prediction was accurate. But I am heartened that we will hold this man criminally accountable for what he’s done to each and every person he victimized in some way by filing these additional charges against him today. Our goal remains to protect our community from him by separating him from society for as long as possible.”
Investigators said they have dozens of images and videos of victims who they have yet to identify. Anyone who believes they might be a victim or has additional details has been asked to contact Bensalem Township Detective Aaron Woelkers at 215-633-3658.
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Editor’s Note: All individuals arrested or charged with a crime are presumed innocent until proven guilty. The story was compiled using information from police and public court documents.
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