Stancl: "SEXTORTION AT EISENHOWER HIGH"

UPDATE, February 24, 2010: Stancl gets 15 years in prison in Facebook coercion case
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UPDATE, December 22, 2009: Anthony Stancl - GUILTY, 2 counts sexual assault
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Anthony Stancl, New Berlin's own, is in GQ!

In his case, however, it's no honor, nothing to brag about.

The August issue contains an in-depth story on Tony Stancl and his alleged blackmail scheme to coerce male students into having sex with him.

It's written by Michael Joseph Gross.

"Sextortion at Eisenhower High":

Last year, an awkward high school senior in Wisconsin went online, passed himself off as a flirtatious female student, and conned dozens of his male classmates into e-mailing him sexually explicit images of themselves. What he did next will likely send him to jail for a very long time.

Read GQ's take on Stancl's story.

The article concludes:

Brad Schimel, Waukesha County D.A., says he hopes the Stancl case will be "a two-by-four upside the head to parents," encouraging them to get involved in their children's lives online. Tony, whose lawyer declined to comment on the case, pleaded not guilty to all charges at his arraignment in March. At press time, a trial date had not been set. None of the seven alleged victims indicate any willingness to take the stand, though, and Schimel would like to avoid making them testify. Most people in New Berlin would probably prefer a plea bargain to a trial. Says Michael Fesenmaier, "We just want to get back to normal."

But what does normal even look like anymore? The Stancl case, extreme as it is, offers an unsettling answer: What happened here is shocking because it was not all that shocking. In the beginning, when Kayla and Emily asked these boys for naked pictures, the majority of them thought little of saying yes. This exchange was within the range of what kids—lots of kids—consider normal. Online, a boy chats with a girl he's never met. Pants go down. Pictures are sent. And a chain of unpredictable, unknowable consequences is set in motion.

Whatever else he may be, Tony Stancl is an opportunist. He rode the big wave that more and more kids ride, out to a place where every flesh-and-blood kid is also a phantom, where adolescence isn't so lonely, where you don't have to wonder, Isn't there anybody who wants what I want? In this world, no IM goes unanswered—and for every teenager who types the question will u send it?, there is another typing, Yes.

Stancl's story isn't about teen angst and loneliness. The issue isn't what Stancl wanted.

It's how he got it.
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UPDATE, July 15, 2009: Bail lowered for ex-New Berlin student in Facebook coercion case