Michigan- A 31-year-old Ravenna woman is facing trial on charges that she used a Web cam to send pictures over the Internet of herself and three minor children performing sex acts.
Jennifer Kay Phillips, who remains in the Muskegon County Jail in lieu of $200,000 bail, waived her preliminary examination last week in 60th District Court.
Phillips, of 3806 S. Ravenna, Apartment 2, was arrested this month after an investigation by the Muskegon County Sheriff’s Department. She is charged with three counts of child sexually abusive activity and one count of using a computer to commit a crime. The alleged offenses occurred in July.
Detective Shane Brown said the woman sent the images to a man she made contact with over the Internet. The investigation began after one of the children told a parent, and the parents contacted police, he said.
The male and female children involved ranged in age from 7 to 15, police reported.
The man on the other end of the Internet connection had provided fictitious information when registering his “screen name,” Brown said. A “screen name” is a pseudonym that people use to conceal their identity when communicating on the Internet. Multiple search warrants were served to the Internet service provider, but the man’s identity has not been discovered, he said.
When Phillips allegedly told the man one of the children had disclosed what was going on, “he deactivated the screen name and disappeared into the abyss of the Internet,” Brown said. Phillips never received money for her alleged actions, he said.
Brown said the man “was telling her what to do, and she would perform sex acts with each of the children in front of the Web cam.”
The woman and children were nude, he said, and several different scenarios oc-curred. She would allegedly do certain things to the children and they would do things to each other and to her.
Brown called it a “heart-breaking situation” for the families.
“It’s typical of crimes against children. You victimize not only the kids themselves, but everyone in the family,” he said.