A man paid almost €2,000 to a woman who was threatening to show his wife the naked selfies he had sent her, a magistrate heard yesterday.

Cospicua resident Rosianne Cassar, 22, a single mother of a five-month-old child, received a suspended jail term after admitting to charges of extortion that began in June last year and continued until April.

After a break of almost four months, the woman reignited her appetite for more money and contacted the man’s wife through Facebook.

The matter was then referred to the police.

Magistrate Neville Camilleri heard how Ms Cassar downloaded photos from a porn website and sent them to the man with whom she was conversing on Facebook.

After sending the naked photographs, she urged him to send her pictures of himself too.

On receiving them, she began using these photographs to demand money from the man, whose name cannot be mentioned by court order. She threatened to tell his wife that he had sent these photographs and also threatened to place them on the internet and tarnish his reputation.

The extortion took place over a prolonged period, when the victim paid the woman a total of €1,770.

Defence lawyers Edward Gatt and Mark Vassallo described the actions of their client as “mere folly” and argued that the crime was prompted by Ms Cassar’s dire economic situation since she was an unemployed single mother.

In submissions on punishment, prosecuting police inspector Josric Mifsud told the court that his primary concern and that of the victims was the destruction of the compromising photographs and that the woman be ordered to leave the husband and wife in peace.

Magistrate Camilleri handed the woman a two-year prison sentence suspended for four years and ordered her to repay the €1,770 within six months.

He also gave the prosecution permission to find technical experts to permanently delete the photographs from the woman’s laptop and mobile phone.

Moreover, the magistrate upheld a request for a ban on the publication of the name of the victim and his wife but turned down the request for Ms Cassar’s name to be withheld from publication.