Peters Township senior charged in ‘sextortion’ scheme
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The president of Peters Township High School’s senior class is in jail after local police accused him Friday of running a criminal network where in which he “catfished” juvenile teenagers, convinced them to share inappropriate images and videos and in some cases extorted them.
Zachariah Abraham Meyers, 18, faces more than 300 felony charges. The charges include unlawful contact with a minor, child sexual abuse material, sexual exploitation of children, contact or communication with a minor, sexual extortion, disseminating photos or film of child sexual abuse material and criminal use of a communication facility.
According to the criminal complaint, Peters Township police began investigating Meyers on Dec. 5. Police identified at least 21 alleged victims ranging in age 14 to 17.
A statement from the school district states that the police made district officials aware of the investigation on Friday.
“The police have indicated that there is no immediate safety risk to our schools, and we will continue to cooperate fully with the investigation. The safety and well-being of students, staff, and families remain our highest priority, and we appreciate all the efforts of the Peters Township police in this matter,” reads the statement.
Meyers “catfished” many of the victims on social media platforms TikTok and Snapchat, meaning he created profiles pretending to be someone else, court documents allege. The communications occurred between summer of 2024 and the summer of 2025, according to the complaint.
“All but one of the juveniles believed they were communicating with an attractive young female,” police wrote in the complaint.
Charging documents state that victims were convinced to send sexually explicit images and videos to Meyers. Meyers allegedly pressured one of them to send more materials by threatening that he needed more to “keep my silence,” the complaint reads.
According to the complaint, the victim sent videos of sexual encounters with two different adult men to Meyers. The men are not identified in court records. At Meyers’ direction, police say the victim also used a cellphone to secretly record the Peters Township High School wrestling locker room.
Other victims interviewed by police also claimed that Meyers began threatening to send pictures and videos to family and friends if they did not continue to send more. In some cases, Meyers allegedly demanded $500 in exchange for keeping the material private, court paperwork indicates.
Investigators were able to trace the social media accounts communicating with the juveniles back to Meyers.
According to the complaint, Friday morning police served a search warrant at Meyers’ Peters Township home in the 200 block of Windermere Court and took him into custody.
Meyers was arraigned Friday morning before District Judge Phillippe Melograne, who sent him to the Washington County jail without bond. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Feb. 27.