--- title: Police Say They Won't Take Explicit Photos of Teen in Sexting Case description: Police in Virginia have backed away from a controversial plan to take sexually explicit photos of a 17-year-old. canonical: https://time.com/2973805/police-sexting-teen/ author: Noah Rayman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-07-10T19:22:23.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:55:38.518Z og:title: Police Say They Won't Take Explicit Photos of Teen in Sexting Case og:description: Police in Virginia have backed away from a controversial plan to take sexually explicit photos of a 17-year-old. og:url: https://time.com/2973805/police-sexting-teen/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Police Say They Won't Take Explicit Photos of Teen in Sexting Case twitter:description: Police in Virginia have backed away from a controversial plan to take sexually explicit photos of a 17-year-old. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Police Say They Won't Take Explicit Photos of Teen in Sexting Case > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published Tuesdays and Saturdays to 40,000 subscribers as of August 2026. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters.  by [Noah Rayman](https://time.com/author/noah-rayman/)  ## Noah Rayman Jul 10, 2014 7:22 PM UTC  by [Noah Rayman](https://time.com/author/noah-rayman/)  ## Noah Rayman Jul 10, 2014 7:22 PM UTC Police in Virginia [have backed away](http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US%5FSEXTING%5FSEARCH%5FWARRANT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT) from a controversial plan to take [sexually explicit photos of a 17-year-old ](http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US%5FSEXTING%5FSEARCH%5FWARRANT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT)to corroborate the images with evidence in a sexting case, the Associated Press reports. The teen in question faces two felony charges in juvenile court for manufacturing and distributing child pornography after exchanging sexts with his then-15-year-old girlfriend. Police and prosecutors received a warrant to take the sexually explicit photos to compare against photos he allegedly sent. But amid a wave of backlash, Manassas Police Lt. Brian Larkin told the AP Thursday that his department would not move forward with the plan and will let the search warrant expire. He did not give a specific reason. A day earlier, the Manassas Police Department [issued a statement](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/local/wp/2014/07/09/manassas-city-police-release-statement-on-teen-sexting-case/) saying it was not their policy to “authorize invasive search procedures of suspects in cases of this nature.” That statement did not elaborate on whether the images would be taken. \[[_AP_](http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US%5FSEXTING%5FSEARCH%5FWARRANT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/2973805/police-sexting-teen/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/2973805/police-sexting-teen/"},"headline":"Police Say They Won't Take Explicit Photos of Teen in Sexting Case","datePublished":"2014-07-10T19:22:23.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:55:38.518Z","description":"Following a wave of backlash.","url":"https://time.com/2973805/police-sexting-teen/","keywords":["Living","Crime","Teens","Sex","Family","Virginia","justice","sexting"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Noah Rayman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/noah-rayman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/2973805/police-sexting-teen/","name":"Police Say They Won't Take Explicit Photos of Teen in Sexting Case"}}]}] ```