Woodbridge man sentenced to 40 years in federal prison for exploiting girls on Snapchat

This article was republished with permission from WTOP’s news partner InsideNoVa.com. Sign up for InsideNoVa.com’s free email subscription today. Read the article on Inside Nova.  A 24-year-old Woodbridge man was sentenced Thursday to 40 years in federal prison for coercing more than 40 girls, ages 12 to 17, via a hacked Snapchat account to create and send him child sexual abuse material. Malachi Morgan Thomas pleaded guilty in April to charges including the sexual exploitation of children and possession of child sex abuse material. He received the maximum sentence. “Malachi Thomas exploited dozens of girls through threats, coercion, and devastating sexual abuse,” Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, said in a news release about the sentencing. “His tactics — leveraging hacked accounts, fear of physical harm, psychological manipulation, and physical assaults — underscore the gravity of his abusive and horrific crimes,” the release said. “This defendant will spend the next four decades in prison and never harm another child.” According to court documents, from at least March to October of 2020, Thomas used a Snapchat account, which he had previously hacked and stolen from a minor, to coerce approximately 41 girls between the ages
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