Snapchat predator gets 40 years in prison for exploiting dozens of girls
A stolen Snapchat account opened the door to a campaign of abuse.
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- Malachi Morgan Thomas received 40 years in prison for producing and possessing child sexual abuse material.
- Prosecutors said he used a hacked Snapchat account to coerce 41 girls ages 12 to 17.
- Court documents say he threatened victims with hacking and physical harm to control them.
- Investigators found explicit images and videos on his phone, including recordings of assaults.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
A Virginia man has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for sexual exploitation of young girls and possession of child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
According to court documents, 24-year-old Malachi Morgan Thomas used a Snapchat account he previously hacked to coerce 41 girls between the ages of 12 and 17 to engage in sexually explicit conduct.
Some of the victims were made to create CSAM during live video calls.
To instill fear in his victims, the defendant told them he was the leader of a criminal organization and that it would be in their best interest to do as he said.
To force the victims to do as he pleased, Thomas threatened that he would hack their Snapchat accounts or harm them and their family members.
In June 2020, the defendant traveled to a victim’s home and assaulted her. The attack was recorded on his phone and saved in his Snapchat account. A month later, Thomas traveled to a shopping mall in Virginia to meet another victim he exploited on Snapchat. But instead of the victim, her father and several police officers appeared at the mall.
A few months later, in October, Thomas was arrested by the Fairfax County Police Department on charges of rape and sodomy of 2 minors.
During a search of Thomas’ residence in Woodbridge, officers found a phone containing dozens of sexually explicit photos and videos, including recordings of the sexual assaults of the 2 victims in Fairfax County.
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On April 2nd, 2026, Thomas pleaded guilty to producing and possessing CSAM. The US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia sentenced the defendant to 40 years in prison for exploiting 41 girls to create sexually explicit photos and videos.
“Malachi Thomas exploited dozens of girls through threats, coercion, and devastating sexual abuse. His tactics, leveraging hacked accounts, fear of physical harm, psychological manipulation, and physical assaults, underscore the gravity of his abusive and horrific crimes. This defendant will spend the next four decades in prison and never harm another child,” Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said in a statement.
“The FBI remains steadfast in our commitment to identifying and investigating those who prey on minors, whether online or in our communities. We hope today’s sentence brings a measure of justice for the victims as they continue to heal,” Darren B. Cox of the FBI Washington Field Office added.
In July, a 27-year-old man from Oswego, Illinois, was sentenced to 76 months in prison for hacking 517 Snapchat accounts and downloading nude images of female users.
