Peters teen charged in ‘sextortion’ case asks Superior Court to grant bond request
The Peters Township teen at the center of the alleged “sextortion and catfishing” scheme is asking the state Superior Court to grant him bond after earlier requests have been rejected by the lower courts multiple times.
Attorneys for Zachariah Abraham Meyers filed the petition July 27 requesting he be offered some form of bail with strict conditions after he’s been held without bond at the Washington County jail since his arrest in February on dozens of felony charges.
Meyers, 19, who was the Peters Township High School senior class president before his arrest, is accused of creating false profiles on social media platforms TikTok and Snapchat to “catfish” about two dozen victims as he pretended to be someone else, according to court documents.
District Judge Phillippe Melograne denied Meyers bond during his Feb. 20 arraignment, and then again a week later at his preliminary hearing where he ordered the defendant to stand trial on all charges. Attorneys for Meyers made additional requests for bond modifications to Washington County Court of Common Pleas Judge Traci McDonald in March and June, but were denied both times.
“We’re asking that the Superior Court look at that decision and we’re hopeful that he’s entitled to bond and should not have had bond denied,” defense attorney Lisle Weaver said in a phone interview Monday.
Weaver said their request asks for house arrest with strict conditions that he would not have access to any electronic devices, cellphones or the internet. Weaver added that he hopes the appellate court will rule on the matter in the next couple of weeks.
“He’s obviously willing to abide by any conditions the court imposes,” Weaver said. “We’re just looking for bond rather than a complete denial.”
But Washington County District Attorney Jason Walsh said his office does not think there are any conditions in which Meyers should be released due to the allegations that he used “sophisticated” technology and apps to conceal his identity during the alleged sextortion and catfishing scheme.
“We agree with the judge’s decision when we asked for no bail and we stand by that request,” Walsh said in an interview Monday. “With the electronics thing, the commonwealth doesn’t believe you can adequately protect the public. You can have communications with anyone, and his (method) was pretty sophisticated.”
Walsh said Meyers hid behind numerous encrypted apps using a “complex” process on social media, raising questions about whether he could secretly have access to technology while free on bond.
“He obviously knows how to use those types of apps and technology, and we don’t think we can adequately protect the public,” Walsh said.
Police said Meyers convinced the victims to send sexually explicit images and videos to him by pretending to be an attractive young female, and he allegedly pressured one of them to send more materials by threatening to expose the victim. He also is accused of pressuring the teen to send videos while involved in sexual encounters with two different adult men, who were not identified in court records.
The correspondence happened between the summer of 2024 and last summer as he communicated with at least 21 alleged victims ranging in age from 14 to 17 during that time, said Peters Township police, who began investigating in early December.
The investigation into the sextortion ring has expanded with at least two additional men being charged with allegedly sexting with a 15-year-old boy or meeting for a sexual encounter.
Aaron Foster White, 30, of Fallowfield Township, was charged by Peters Township police July 23 for allegedly sending photographs and videos he took of his genitalia to a 15-year-old boy during multiple interactions using a social media app last summer. Local and federal investigators found the images on the teen’s phone while investigating the case involving Meyers, prompting them to charge White.
Charles Ezekiel Usner, 23, of Mt. Lebanon, was arrested last Monday and charged by Peters police with communicating with a 15-year-old boy in late June 2025 before picking up the teen July 1 of that year and driving him to the park where the two allegedly performed sex acts on one another at Peters Lake Park, according to court documents. The teen later messaged Meyers and told him he had “vids” of the encounter and shared them, according to court documents.
Alexander Scott, 18, of Peters, was charged by Washington police last week with numerous felony counts after investigators said he communicated with a 14-year-old boy on an internet chat board in June and tried to initiate a sexual encounter with the juvenile and another man. Peters Township authorities told city police that Scott “had been the subject of a previous similar investigation,” although investigators did not reveal whether that situation involves the sextortion and catfishing case.
Meyers is scheduled to appear in court again at 9:30 a.m. Monday for a status conference before McDonald. He is facing 67 felony charges that include multiple counts each of unlawful contact with a minor, trafficking minors, corruption of minors and multiple counts of images depicting child sex acts, child sex abuse material, sexual exploitation of minors, sexual communication with a minor, sexual extortion, disseminating photos of children, criminal use of a communications facility and intercepting communications.