According to a newly unsealed criminal complaint, Rian “RJ” Hurts communicated with a “professional athlete” (identified in court proceedings as “Victim-1”) for nearly six years, mostly through Instagram. The FBI affidavit stated Hurts ran multiple personas online and that “Hurts, a man, goes by "R.J." when dressed as a male, and uses another moniker when dressed as a female. Victim-1 also learned that Hurts hosts transgender sex parties.” But it was not until recently that the tone in the online conversation between the two men shifted to extortion threats.
In early June, Hurts and the professional athlete met at a hotel and engaged in sexual acts. Unbeknownst to the athlete, Hurts was allegedly recording the encounter.
A few days following that hotel hookup, Hurts allegedly sent the athlete multiple texts requesting $250,000 in order to delete the video. In addition, Hurts told the victim that he was originally offered $300,000 from an unnamed party to make the recording and stated that a different unnamed professional athlete would also pay him for the video of the victim. In one text, Hurts allegedly stated, “Please do not let this situation spiral out of control. I know too much about you. And I'll sign an NDA.”
The FBI set up a sting to catch Hurts. At the direction of the law enforcement, the athlete traveled to New York and communicated with Hurts. Using a location warrant, authorities were able to verify that Hurts was not in the same state, thus opening up an opportunity to charge him with three counts under 18 USC 875, interstate threats to extort. At the direction of the FBI, the athlete communicated with Hurts to arrange payment. Hurts provided the victim with his bank account information to wire the extortion money. Authorities say they then cross-referenced that account with Hurts’ information on his OnlyFans site which listed one of the online moniker’s Hurts allegedly used to communicate with the athlete.
A lawyer for Hurts did not respond to a request for comment.
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