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Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin on Thursday announced his office filed a lawsuit against Snap, Inc., Snapchat's parent company, ...

Social media company Snap is being sued by the parents of a girl who was raped when she was 12 years old by a man she met on disappearing messaging app Snapchat. The 111-page lawsuit, filed this week in a Missouri Circuit Court, alleges that Santa Monica-based Snap “enabled and facilitated the grooming, exploitation, and sexual abuse” of the minor who is referred to as “J.F.” The company failed to disable or warn users about “dangerous” features that predators use on the app to find and abuse their victims, according to the lawsuit. Missouri resident Gabriel Joel Valentin-Rios, who was 25 years old at the time, raped the girl in September 2021 after she sneaked out of her house, the lawsuit alleges. The parents are also suing the attacker, who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting the girl and is serving 18 years in prison, according to the Social Media Victims Law Center. The center and the Holland Law Firm announced Thursday they filed the lawsuit on behalf on the victim’s family. “This assault did not happen in a vacuum — it happened because Snapchat’s product design made it easy for a predator to reach and manipulate an unsuspecting child,” said

The family of a teen girl alleges Snapchat's features enabled a 25-year-old to groom and abuse her. Photo: Aap Image/AAP PHOTOS The parents of a girl who was raped when she was 12 by an adult stranger she met on Snapchat have sued its parent company, Snap, and the attacker in Missouri state court. Subscribe now for unlimited access. or signup to continue reading EOFY SAVE 50% All articles from our website & app The digital version of Today's Paper Crosswords, Sudoku and Trivia The lawsuit filed on Wednesday claims the social media company has refused to disable dangerous features in its app or warn parents about potential harms it may cause. According to the lawsuit, the girl began using Snapchat in 2021 when she was 11 without her parents' knowledge. While the app requires users to be 13 to sign up, the lawsuit says the girl does not remember what birth date she entered and that children knew they could easily bypass the minimum-age requirement. About a year after she began using Snapchat, the lawsuit says the app recommended her and teen girls from nearby high schools as friends to defendant Gabriel Joel Valentin-Rios, an adult who had no

By BARBARA ORTUTAY Posted 6/24/26 The parents of a girl who was raped when she was 12 years old by an adult stranger she met on Snapchat have sued its parent company, Snap, and the attacker in Missouri state court. The lawsuit … This item is available in full to subscribers. Attention subscribers We have recently launched a new and improved website. To continue reading, you will need to either log into your subscriber account, or purchase a new subscription. If you are a digital subscriber with an active subscription, then you already have an account here. Just reset your password if you've not yet logged in to your account on this new site. If you are a current print subscriber, you can set up a free website account by clicking here. Otherwise, click here to view your options for subscribing. Please log in to continue Need an account? Print and web subscribers If you're a print and web subscriber, but do not yet have an online account, click here to create one. Non-subscribers Click here to see your options for becoming a subscriber.

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Copyright © 2026, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. This document may not be reprinted without the express written permission of Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. Material from the Associated Press is Copyright © 2026, Associated Press and may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press text, photo, graphic, audio and/or video material shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium. Neither these AP materials nor any portion thereof may be stored in a computer except for personal and noncommercial use. The AP will not be held liable for any delays, inaccuracies, errors or omissions therefrom or in the transmission or delivery of all or any part thereof or for any damages arising from any of the foregoing. All rights reserved.

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By Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office Mon Jun 22, 2026 | 12:37pm Press releases are posted on Independent.com as a free community service. Credit: Courtesy Santa Barbara, Calif. – The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office is asking for the public’s help in identifying additional survivors following the arrest of a Santa Maria man accused of using social media and messaging applications to contact and exploit minors. On May 28, 2026, Sheriff’s detectives began an investigation into allegations that 20-year-old Edward “Eddie” Alessandro Zarate of Santa Maria was communicating with underage girls online and exchanging sexually explicit material. During the investigation, detectives learned Zarate used applications including Whipd, Purp, Wizz, Snapchat, and text messaging to communicate with minors. Detectives believe Zarate communicated with minors in multiple states, including Florida and Illinois, as well as throughout California. Detectives believe Zarate also had contact with minors from Santa Barbara, Santa Maria, Lompoc, Paso Robles, Nipomo, Arroyo Grande, Oxnard, San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Investigators discovered that Zarate’s profiles on these applications appeared to portray him as a juvenile. Once he established communication with minors, he would often encourage them to move conversations off the platform and continue communicating via text message. During

Two cousins were arrested this past week after they allegedly snuck onto a private ranch to illegally hunt hogs and were tracked down through surveillance cameras, a Snapchat video and an impounded pit bull. Gavin Keith Dasher, 30, of Oxford, and his 18-year-old cousin, Gracin Randell Dasher-Richardson of Wildwood, were arrested by Sumter County sheriff’s deputies on misdemeanor trespassing charges. Gavin Dasher Gracin Dasher-Richardson The investigation began in late May when a detective found suspicious tire tracks leading to a fenced, private cattle ranch along Interstate 75 in Bushnell. The property owner authorized deputies to investigate after reporting that trespassers had been illegally hunting hogs on his land. The detective set up hidden surveillance cameras in the area. Late on the night of June 3, the cameras captured three men and a black dog moving hastily through a metal gate onto the property. When deputies responded to the area, they located a Chevrolet pickup truck parked nearby. As deputies approached, they spotted three men who suddenly turned and fled westbound deep into the ranch. While the men managed to escape, deputies captured a tan pit bull equipped with a tracking collar that was left behind. The dog was transported to

A former Launceston teacher’s aide has been jailed for grooming three teenage boys at the school where he worked and sending them explicit images of himself. Brandon Lee Anthony Chell, 28, was this month sentenced in the Supreme Court to 15 months’ imprisonment, backdated to June 12. He pleaded guilty to two counts of grooming with intent to expose a young person to indecent material and two counts of attempting to involve a person under 18 in the production of child exploitation material. The crimes were committed between April and August 2023, when Chell was 25 and working as a teacher’s aide at a Launceston high school. All three victims were male students at the school. Two were aged 15 and one was 15 and 16. Justice Robert Pearce said protection of children was the dominant consideration. Image / Pulse The court heard Chell befriended the boys on Snapchat. He sent one of them nude and semi-nude images of himself almost daily, often late at night and asked the boy to send images of his penis. He sent a second boy a message demanding an explicit image. The boy blocked him minutes later. He sent a third boy an explicit