A Long Island man was sentenced Monday to more than 17 years in prison for distributing child pornography and cyber-bullying a 12-year-old girl to the point where she tried to commit suicide, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
Lorenzo Arana of Island Park, who went by the online alias “Lorenzo Blake,” had thousands of followers across Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, Snapchat and Youtube, and would leverage them to blackmail underage girls who refused to comply with his demands, prosecutors said.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s office, the 22-year-old had a “lengthy and well-documented history” of soliciting pornography and other explicit materials from the girls, then threatening to distribute that material– along with other sensitive information, such as their phone numbers – if they declined his calls or refused to send more of what he wanted.
In September 2020, Arana sent sexually explicit videos of 12-year-old “Jane Doe #2” to her friends and classmates, publicly posting that it was to “expose” her for refusing to respond to his calls.
Law enforcement officials found text messages from Arana telling the girl to kill herself. When he learned she was contemplating suicide, he wrote “I don’t care … she deserves it,” investigators said.
Police in another state received an emergency call for a welfare check on the girl, and found her unconscious in her bed with loose pills, two pill bottles, a gun and a suicide note, officials said. She survived.
Arana pleaded guilty to child pornography charges in November 2022. He was sentenced Monday by United States District Judge Gary R. Brown at the federal courthouse in Central Islip.
“It is particularly evil for a person to prey upon young people and exploit their innocence, but to do so to the point where a victim sees no reason to live is beyond reprehensible,” stated Ivan J. Arvelo, Special Agent-in-Charge of Homeland Security Investigations. “The…
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