POLK COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) – Lurid allegations involving a 10-year old girl and Facebook messenger land a man in jail in Polk County.

According to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, Simon “Pete” Anderson, 19, connected with the young girl through friends.

The two began talking over Facebook messenger and texting.

Investigators say, Anderson sent the girl up to 100 explicit pictures and urged her to send him similar pictures of her.

“Simon stated he forced her to send images by [threatening] suicide, [threatening] to kill REDACTED and threatening to contact law enforcement and get them both in trouble. Simon advised REDACTED did send him images of her vagina,” Anderson told detectives, according to the arrest affidavit.

“I’d say that’s all the threatening you can do,” said Sheriff Grady Judd. “That’s called grooming. So you can groom and make friends, you can groom them by threatening them.”

In text messages laid out in the affidavit, Anderson appears to know what he was doing was wrong.

“Ur 10, u need someone ur age,” he wrote, according to the sheriff’s office. “I should go to the police and get arrest.”

According to the sheriff, investigators learned of the behavior after a friend saw the explicit photos on the girl’s phone and told an adult.

“If you don’t know who they’re communicating with online, if you’re not familiar with their technology, if you haven’t got the parental controls in place, you’re allowing this deviant into your child’s bedroom,” said Sheriff Judd.

Anderson is facing possession of child porn, extortion and aggravated cyberstalking charges.

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