In 2020, 32-year-old Sean Higgins, a youth pastor and music leader at Harbor Baptist Church along as a teacher at Harbor Baptist Academy, has been sentenced to 25 years in NJ State Prison for coaxing young males into sending nude pictures and videos via social media before using it as blackmail.
An investigation was opened in 2020 after a juvenile reported an interaction with the defendant to Snapchat. The investigation discovered former pastor Sean Higgins to have impersonated a teenage girl named Julie Miller through social media and would begin conversation with several male adolescents. The defendant would suggest sharing nude photos of themselves and would then immediately threaten to expose them to the people on the victims’ friends list unless they complied with his demands.
The defendant’s demands included sending sexual videos of themselves, which would then become more blackmail. The victims would beg to stop engaging in sexual acts in the videos they were forced into sending Higgins.
Prosecutor LaChia L. Bradshaw expressed that “Some of these victims contemplated suicide to get out from under extreme anguish that accompanied the defendant’s debauched, unrelenting demands.”
Earlier this year, Pastor Sean Higgins pled guilty to three counts of First-Degree Endangering the Welfare of Children and one count of Third-Degree Endangering the Welfare of Children. Prior to his sentencing, the defendant was held in Burlington County Jail since his arrest in October 2020.
“Sean Higgins has betrayed the trust of his community by victimizing children,” commented Homeland Security Investigations Newark Special Agent in Charge Ricky J. Patel.
