A 19-year-old California man has been charged over hacking into a webcam at the home of Miss Teen USA in a bid to extort nude photographs.

Jared-James Abrahams surrendered to agents at the FBI office in Orange County on Thursday, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said. He is accused of attempting to extort nude photos from Cassidy Wolf after claiming he had obtained private images from the beauty queen's home computer.

He was later freed on $50,000 (€37,028) bail but a judge confined him to his family home. According to the criminal complaint, Miss Wolf was one of several female victims.

She told NBC's Today show in August that she had received an anonymous e-mail in which the sender claimed to have stolen images from her webcam.

"I wasn't aware that somebody was watching me (on my webcam)," the 19-year-old said. "The light (on the camera) didn't even go on, so I had no idea."

She said the e-mailer threatened to go public with the images unless she provided pictures of herself.

Based on an investigation launched in March, the FBI said there were "multiple" victims from Riverside County and beyond.

According to the complaint, Abrahams threatened to make public images and videos unless the victims submitted to one of three demands: send nude photos, send a nude video, or log onto Skype and do what he says for five minutes.

FBI agents raided Abrahams' home in June and seized computers and hardware, mobile phones and hacking software, court records show.

Miss Wolf, who was Miss California Teen USA, has said she would use her fame to highlight cybercrime.

She said "I was just a normal girl in high school. This next year I'm just so excited to be able to share my story and raise awareness in young teens about what can happen".