A Whittier man received a 31-year prison sentence Wednesday for obtaining nude photos of teenage girls, then extorting them for sex by threatening to share the photos, as well harm them or their families, officials said.
Josh Manuel Magana, 28, pleaded “no contest” last month to two counts of forcible oral copulation, forcible rape, forcible rape of a an underage victim and extortion, Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Sarah Ardalani said in a written statement.
Magana met his victims online via the social media app “KIK,” Lt. Kent Wegener of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Human Trafficking Bureau said at the time of the arrest. He used the online moniker, “thegiftedmonster.”
The investigation began in October of 2016, after Magana pressured a 15-year-old girl to send him nude photos of herself,” Ardalani said.
“The defendant told the girl that if she refused, then he would hurt her and her family,” she said. “The girl told her mother, who then notified law enforcement.”
As the investigation continued, detectives identified a second teenage girl who reported that Magana had threatened to distribute nude photos of her if she refused to have sex with him, officials said.
Investigators arrested Magana in February.
“Due to media coverage of the case, a third victim came forward and revealed that the defendant also had been forcing her to have sex with him,” according to Ardalani. Her age was not available Wednesday.
Once released from prison, Magana will be required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

PHOTO: Josh Manuel Magana, 28, of Whittier. (Courtesy, LASD)