Ohio woman charged with sexually extorting Utah teenager

SANDY — An arrest warrant has been issued for an Ohio woman investigators believe has sexually extorted numerous people, including a teenager in Utah.

Salon Finklea, 34, of Cleveland, Ohio, was charged Thursday in 3rd District Court with aggravated sexual extortion of a child, a first-degree felony; and sexual exploitation of a minor, a second-degree felony.

In January of 2023, police say Finklea contacted a 16-year-old Sandy boy on Instagram and later convinced him to send nude photographs of himself to her on Snapchat. After he did so, she sent him a message stating “if he did not pay Finklea $1,000 through CashApp, she would send all of (his) nude photographs to his contacts,” according to charging documents.

After the boy paid her $25, Finklea demanded more money and the boy told his mother what was happening, the charges state. Police were then contacted. Detectives served several search warrants and learned Finklea’s CashApp account in just two months “had nearly 2,000 payments from a large amount of senders, (and included) comments about a ‘scam.'”

Police were able to track down and contact Finklea on the phone, but she refused to tell investigators where she was, according to the charges.

Because Finklea “has demonstrated she poses a risk to the safety and welfare of the victim and many young men in the community,” and she “has preyed upon many victims, exploiting their vulnerability,” and because the state “does not have a valid address” for her, prosecutors have requested that she be held in jail without the possibility of posting bail when he is arrested.

Officers have been cautioning both teenagers and adults for several years now not to friend someone on social media that they’ve never met in person, and never engage in sexual behavior online.