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Man sentenced to 43 years for victimizing more than 1,100 minors in sextortion case

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ST. PAUL, Minn. — A man accused of victimizing more than a thousand young girls across the United States was sentenced to 43 years in federal prison.

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In a news release, the Department of Justice announced that Yue Vang was sentenced to 516 months to be followed by a lifetime term of supervised release for an online sextortion scheme targeting minor girls.

“Using popular social media apps to prey on his victims, Vang’s manipulation began with compliments and expressions of flattery, which quickly turned into threats and extortion,” U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger said in a statement.

Vang was accused of pretending to be real-life underage girls to convince other young girls to send him child pornography, KARE reported. When they refused, Vang threatened to, and did, release the girls’ explicit images and videos.

In a brief statement to the court, Vang offered an apology, saying: “I recognize that by saying I am deeply sorry will never be enough to address the trauma and the pain that I have caused. There are no words or actions that can express how deeply sorry I am,” the Pioneer Press reported.

Prosecutors said that to date they have identified at least 750 minor victims, but that there are still others whose identities have not been confirmed. Investigators ask anyone who believes they may have been a victim or who has information to visit the FBI’s dedicated website to the case.

FBI officials told KARE that they had identified victims in all 50 states, ranging from 12 to 17 years old.

“There are few crimes as damaging and traumatic to a young person as sextortion,” FBI Special Agent In Charge, Michael Paul, of the Minneapolis division, said in a statement. “This case demonstrates the extensive reach of social media and the irreparable trauma one predatory individual inflicted on over a thousand young girls.”

Dozens of the victims in the case attended the sentencing hearing, with several victims sharing impact statements with the court, KARE reported.

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