INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - A man has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for coercing more than a dozen teenagers in multiple US states into performing sex acts on webcam.

The 40-year-old Richard Finkbiner was sentenced on Wednesday in federal court in Terre Haute. Prosecutors had hoped Finkbiner would be sentenced to an effective life term.

Finkbiner was charged with operating a "sextortion" scheme that targeted hundreds of minors across the United States, some as young as 12 years old. Prosecutors say Finkbiner tricked the teens into performing sexual acts on webcam, then threatened to upload the explicit images to porn websites unless they made yet more videos for his personal use.