Why the US Senate must pass bipartisan sextortion bill now

Maureen Flatley

Submitted photo/InsideSources

The James T. Woods Act passed the House in January. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved it unanimously in February. The White House has endorsed it, as have more than two-dozen law-enforcement and child-safety organizations. Since then, it has sat on the Senate calendar as Calendar No. 346, waiting for floor time that has not come.”

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OPINION — In November 2022, Tamia and Tim Woods lost their only child.

James, a 17-year-old from Streetsboro, Ohio, was known as a joyful, compassionate kid with a bright future. Then someone on Instagram, posing as a young woman, groomed him, persuaded him to send intimate photos and turned those photos into a weapon.

James died by suicide after being targeted. 

His story is not rare. Sextortion schemes, many run by organized networks overseas, now target teenagers with brutal efficiency. The playbook is simple and cruel: Build trust, obtain an image, then threaten to send it to family, classmates and teammates unless the victim pays or produces more.

Too often, the result is a child who believes there is no way out. 

Congress has a bill ready to answer this, and it has had one for months. The James T. Woods Act passed the House in January. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved it unanimously in February. The White House has endorsed it, as have more than two-dozen law-enforcement and child-safety organizations. Since then, it has sat on the Senate calendar as Calendar No. 346, waiting for floor time that has not come. The Senate should take it up and pass it now. 

The act combines three bipartisan measures: the SAFE Act, the ECCHO Act and the Stop Sextortion Act. It is led in the Senate by Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and ranking member Dick Durbin, D-Ill. 

Its central fix is long overdue. Federal laws against child sexual abuse material do not squarely cover the act of threatening to distribute those images. Prosecutors have been left stitching together charging theories built for other crimes. The James T. Woods Act closes that gap by making it a federal crime to intentionally threaten to distribute such material. It names sextortion for what it is. 

The bill goes further. It creates a new offense for coercing children into harming themselves or others, a tactic used by sadistic online groups that push kids toward self-harm and violence. It imposes tougher punishment when exploitation drives a child to suicide. And it directs an update to the federal sentencing guideline for child sexual-abuse material, which has not kept pace with how these crimes are committed. 

Why the urgency? Because every month this bill sits idle is another month of late-night messages and private chats, in which predators operate under laws written for a different era. Teenagers are online constantly, and the people hunting them know it. Laws that lag technology fail twice: They deter no one, and they tell victims and families that the system has not caught up to what happened to them. 

The Woods’ case shows why precise federal law matters. Authorities have just announced an arrest in the Ivory Coast connected to James’s death. That arrest is welcome news, but it also underscores the reality of these crimes. They cross borders, involve multiple actors and take years to unravel. When a case finally reaches a courtroom, prosecutors should have a statute that fits the crime and penalties that reflect its gravity. They should not have to improvise. 

There is no partisan fight to settle here. Senators from both parties wrote this bill and voted it out of committee without dissent. The administration supports it. The House has already done its part. What remains is a question of scheduling, not substance. A bill with this kind of consensus can clear the Senate by unanimous consent in minutes. 

The clock matters, too. This Congress ends in January. If the Senate does not act before then, the bill dies, and the families who fought for it must start over from scratch, with new bill numbers, new hearings and new delays. Children who are 15 today will be adults before a restarted effort reaches the president’s desk. 

Senate leadership should bring the James T. Woods Act to the floor before the year ends. Readers can help by calling their senators and asking for one simple thing: a vote. And parents can do what Tamia Woods has urged in every interview since losing her son. Talk to your kids about sextortion, tell them they will not be in trouble for coming forward, and make sure they know that no threat is worth their life. 

James Woods should still be here. At the very least, the Senate should make sure the law finally recognizes what was done to him and gives the next family a fighting chance. 

Maureen Flatley is president of Stop Child Predators. She wrote this for InsideSources.com. Please submit comments at yourvalley.net/letters or email them to azopinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.