A Fayetteville, North Carolina teenager has reached a plea deal to avoid being charged with multiple sexual exploitation counts after his cell phone was found to contain nude selfies of himself. Seventeen-year-old Cormega Copening, who took the photos of himself when he was 16, agreed to the deal in order to avoid possible jail time and being registered as a sex offender. As part of the plea, the teen agreed to random police searches without warrant for one year as well as other penalties, Fusion reports. The teenager was listed as both the victim and the perpetrator on the sexual exploitation charges.
The case has been met with controversy since the teenager, who faced up to 10 years prison time, was saddled with child pornography charges for being in possession of his own nude selfies. The photos were discovered during an unrelated search of the teen’s phone; he was suspended from the school’s football team until the investigation was resolved. Adding to the uproar was that no warrants were issued for the initial search of Copening’s cell phone.
