photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Signs for Douglas County's juvenile division courtroom and Liberty Memorial Central Middle School are pictured on Friday, June 26, 2026.

Two Lawrence middle school boys are facing felony charges after allegedly “catfishing” a nude selfie out of a fellow eighth-grader and then sharing the ill-gotten image with other youths at Liberty Memorial Central Middle School.

Catfishing is the act of creating a fake identity to deceive someone into taking a particular action such as sharing an intimate photo.

The two boys, who appeared in Douglas County District Court this week, have been charged with sexual exploitation of a child and aggravated unlawful transmission of a visual depiction of a child, both felonies.

The boy they’re accused of victimizing is a fellow student whom, according to the student’s mother, they have a history of bullying due to his autism and Tourette Syndrome. Their actions in April, though, when the catfishing reportedly occurred, went far beyond the previous name-calling and harassment. That earlier misconduct was painful for her son, especially because little was done about it, but it “was nothing as drastic as this.”

Because the student is a minor and is the alleged victim of a sex crime, the Journal-World is not naming him or his mother in order to protect his privacy.

The mother, speaking with the Journal-World after the defendants’ court appearances on Wednesday, said her son was traumatized and humiliated by the incident.

“I just want to die,” she said he told her as the two walked out of Liberty Memorial Central Middle School that day in early April. She had been called to the school, and when she arrived at the principal’s office, not knowing exactly what to expect, she was floored to learn that her son had been so cruelly exploited and embarrassed.

As she tells it, the incident began when the two boys, posing as a girl named “Olivia,” texted her son images of a nude female and expressed a romantic interest and the desire to see a similar image of him. The 14-year-old boy, thinking this was an opportunity to have a special friend like other kids had, complied by sending a partially nude image of himself.

“We had discussed internet safety thousands of times with our son,” the mother said. “He knew, or at least was told, if anything fishy happens, bring it to us. But because he thought it was a girl he liked and he was going to be getting a girlfriend out of it,” he misjudged the situation and sent the photo.

But the recipient was not a girl. And it was not a private message. It was the two boys who had bullied him, his mother said, and those two proceeded to share the intimate image with other kids in the school. She doesn’t know how widely the photo was seen, but she notes that nearly 20 minors are listed on the charging documents as witnesses in the case.

Two of those witnesses, she said, are the girls who reported the incident to a school resource officer.

“To me, they are the true angels of this story,” the mother said, because without two kids who knew right from wrong and who came forward immediately, the exposure could have become far more widespread and “much worse than it already is.”

The incident occurred at the tail end of the school year. In the weeks remaining before summer vacation, the boys were allowed to stay in the school, she said, and her son was escorted between classes to avoid contact with them.

“I had him use the counselor’s bathroom,” she said, “simply because I was worried about him getting ganged up on in the boys bathroom.”

The incident has been extremely hard on him emotionally and socially, she said.

“He is isolating himself now,” she said. “Before this he was the most outgoing child you would have known. In grade school he was known for being the ‘king of the school’ because everyone knew and loved him.”

Currently, a no-contact order is in place, which will become an issue in the fall when all three boys will start their freshman year at Free State High School. Prosecutor Devin Canfield requested that day school at a juvenile facility be ordered for the two boys to keep them away from the alleged victim. He said that one of the boys already has a history of suspensions, juvenile detention and inappropriate conduct, and Judge Paul Klepper noted that he recognized the boy. Canfield said the increased freedom of a high school environment could be problematic for someone who can’t behave properly.

The boy’s attorney, Hatem Chahine, opposed the day school proposal. He said his young client was really hoping to attend Free State High School in the fall “because they have a very good soccer program.”

“His dream is to play soccer at Free State,” Chahine told Klepper, and if he’s in day school he won’t be able to do that.

The mother of the alleged victim, listening to Chahine talk about the soccer dream, said she wondered about her son’s dream and his mental health going forward. Will those be compelling concerns in the criminal justice system?

Though the incident has saddened and angered her, she is “not out to ruin their lives.”

“I’m really not,” she said, adding that she had spent a lot of time thinking about what she would want to happen if she had been the parent of one of the defendants.

“I was like, if I was their parent, what would I want? I would want them to understand that my kid’s 14 and made a mistake,” she concluded. She would want forgiveness, of course, but also accountability. More than anything, she said, she wants kids to get the message that hurtful behavior has real consequences.

The boys’ criminal cases will likely end with a plea bargain in the next month in which the most serious felony, sexual exploitation of a child, will be dropped. That is her understanding, she said, based on conversations with the prosecutor. If that outcome provides a measure of accountability and keeps her son from having to testify — which his therapist said would “destroy” him — she could probably live with that.

Harder to live with, she said: “Our kids are getting bullied on a daily basis, and there’s no one there to protect them.”