FRANKFORT, Ky. (LEX 18) — As the 2025 Kentucky Legislative Session continues in Frankfort, Senate Bill 73 passed through a committee hearing this morning with very little, if any, resistance.
The bill is aimed at making it a felony for anyone caught using compromising images, videos, and messages to extort or coerce a potential victim. The act has become incredibly widespread in recent years.
“The FBI has reported that this issue has had a 1,000 percent increase in sextortion increase in minors in the last 5 years,” said Lady Tee Thompson, a human trafficking fellow.
To counter this surge in “sextortion”, State Senator Julie Raque Adams has sponsored SB 73, which she’s confident will pass during this legislative session.
“You get into these little technical issues here and there, but overall, everyone was supportive of the concept,” Raque Adams said after the bill passed in committee.
A technicality she was referring to has to do with the crime’s classification as a Class-A felony, the most serious. That’s where the bill could run into some obstacles as other lawmakers begin to read it over.
“That’s the great part of the committee process,” Raque Adams said, referring to the ability to rework the language of a bill.
“Committee members are supposed to draw on their own expertise and say, ‘Hey, maybe we need to clarify this,’ so I love going through the committee process because I think it makes for a better bill,” Senator Raque-Adams added.
“It is here, it is real, and it is devouring the innocence of our youth,” Mrs. Thompson told committee members.
