Great Neck native Adam Savader, a former intern for the Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan campaign who was arrested in April on charges of extorting college classmates and other women for nude pictures, will likely plead guilty to federal criminal charges, according to an Associated Press report.
Authorities in Michigan, where Savader attended college and where the federal extortion case was initiated, filed eight charges against him as a criminal information, which, the AP reports, means that Savader is expected to plead guilty.
Savader was charged with internet extortion and cyber stalking after the FBI took him into custody at his family’s Hutchison Court home in Great Neck Gardens in April.
The FBI alleges that over the course of 10 months beginning in May 2012 Savader sent anonymous text messages to 15 women, threatening to release nude pictures of the women unless they sent him additional naked photographs. Victims resided in Detroit, Washington, D.C., and Long Island, according to an April FBI press release.
The investigation began when the first victim, a college student in Michigan and Great Neck native, told local police that she had received text messages starting on Sept. 30, 2012 demanding nude pictures and threatening to send naked photographs of the victim to her friends and family.
A criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Michigan alleged that Savader sent the victim a link to nude photographs of herself on an image-sharing Web site. The victim told police that those images had been stored in her personal e-mail account.
Savader’s attorney Michael Shosnick told the New York Daily News in April “I’ve known Adam his entire life and he has never behaved in a way that would lead me to believe these allegations are true.”
Savader’s internet presence showed a man fast on the rise in conservative circles.
His Twitter account, which has more than 17,000 followers, identifies him as formerly Paul Ryan’s sole intern for the 2012 presidential campaign and a former Newt Gingrich campaign staffer. Savader’s Facebook page contains pictures of the young man, clean cut and wearing glasses, posing with Ryan, Romney and Gingrich.
Savader allegedly identified himself as ‘John Smith’ in the text messages to the Great Neck native, which the victim turned over to local police.
“Smith knew the names of her parents and displayed a Facebook picture of her mother to demonstrate his knowledge of her family,” alleges the criminal complaint. “Victim 1 said that she felt frightened and terrorized by his comments.”
The messages, which included invasive personal questions, continued through November. The detective obtained the phone number linked to the anonymous Google Voice account used to send the messages via court order, and traced the number to a cell phone registered at Savader’s family home in Great Neck, according to the criminal complaint.
A court order to Comcast revealed that the Google Voice account was created by an I.P. address registered to Savader’s former roommate in North Quincy, Mass., according to the complaint. The image-sharing account which Savader allegedly used to host the victim’s photographs was created by an I.P. address registered to Savader’s Great Neck home.
The complaint says that further investigation identified 14 other potential victims, including George Washington University students and former high school classmates of Savader’s.
“I swear on all that is holy. If you [expletive] with me again I will send these to your parents. I have no problem sending them to ur [sic] parents, friends and sorority sisters unless you cooperate by answering me,” Savader allegedly texted to one victim.
