The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia has sentenced a 24-year-old man, Malachi Thomas, to 40 years in prison for sexually exploiting minors through the messaging platform Snapchat and possessing child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

The Department of Justice said Mr Thomas was sentenced on Friday following his guilty plea on April 2, 2026, to one count of production of CSAM and one count of possession of CSAM.

Federal prosecutors said that in 2020, Mr Thomas, a resident of Virginia, coerced nearly 41 girls between 12 and 17 years old into engaging in sexually explicit conduct, using a hacked Snapchat account.

The convicted child sex offender assaulted victims, recording and saving videos of the abuse on his Snapchat account.

Fairfax County Police arrested him in October 2020, and during the investigation, they found another phone containing dozens of images and videos of child sexual abuse material in his Woodbridge residence. He was charged with rape and sodomy of two minors.

Prosecutors said Mr Thomas pressured the minors to create sexually explicit content and engage in such conduct during video calls. 

Claiming to head a criminal organisation, he threatened to hack their accounts when they failed to comply with his directives.

“Thomas was aware that several of his victims suffered from anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues and that many had previously been victims of sexual abuse. In at least one instance, Thomas knew that the victim was in foster care,” the DOJ stated.

The FBI Washington Field Office investigated the case, while Trial Attorney Alicia A. Bove of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) and Assistant U.S. Attorney Lauren Halper for the Eastern District of Virginia prosecuted it.