A Milwaukee man has been charged in an alleged sextortion case involving Mukwonago; the case also involves allegations of stalking.
A report by Greater Milwaukee Today / The Freeman described a Milwaukee man charged after alleged stalking in an alleged sextortion case.
A Catfish Contact Becomes Years of Threats
Court documents say Phillips first reached out to the victim using the name of one of the man's high school classmates, according to the same complaint. From there, prosecutors allege, the contact escalated into direct threats — Phillips is accused of warning he would make the victim's life hell unless he sent money, and separately of threatening to send an alleged picture of the victim's private parts to people in his social circles unless he paid.
The complaint also describes demands tied to the victim's sexuality, with Phillips allegedly threatening to spread false information about him if money wasn't sent. Investigators say messages alleging homosexual activity were also sent to the victim's sister from fake Facebook accounts, and the victim's brother-in-law reported receiving similar messages, per the same account relayed by The Freeman.
Victim Kept Paying, Then Kept Being Threatened Anyway
By 2024, the victim told Phillips he had sent all the money he had and asked him to stop contacting him, the complaint states. But prosecutors allege the extortion continued anyway, with Phillips allegedly demanding more money again as recently as mid-December 2025. The victim's mother had reported in July 2025 that her son was being blackmailed over images of unknown content, according to the complaint.
In February, the victim told police he was still being extorted for money, and the complaint says he ultimately decided to move forward with the investigation despite initial hesitation and embarrassment. Police say they identified Phillips as the person behind the messages. According to the complaint, Phillips claimed he had sent an alleged photo to as many as 19 people.
Hundreds of Venmo Payments, Six Figures in Losses
The financial toll described in the complaint is steep. Police confirmed 704 Venmo transactions in which the victim sent Phillips more than $113,000 since 2023, and the victim separately reported spending about $186,877 total in his effort to keep messages from being posted. The complaint does not explain how those two figures relate to one another.
Waukesha County has issued an arrest warrant for Phillips seeking $10,000 cash bail. If convicted on all counts, he could face more than 30 years in prison, according to the complaint reported by The Freeman.
Sextortion and Cybercrime
Wisconsin's sexual extortion statute, created under Act 48, makes it a Class I felony to threaten to injure another person's property or reputation with intent to coerce that person into sexual conduct or into producing an intimate image, according to the Wisconsin Legislature.
Cases like this one are part of a broader pattern nationally. The FBI received more than 75,000 sextortion reports in 2025 and tallied $122.5 million in extortion-related losses that year, according to CyberScoop's review of the bureau's Internet Crime Complaint Center data. Overall cybercrime losses climbed to nearly $20.9 billion in 2025, a 26 percent jump from the prior year, per the same report. Those national figures don't speak to any particular trend in Wisconsin, but they underscore how common sextortion schemes have become.
