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Reginald "Reggie" Adams was sentenced to 22 months in prison and three years of supervised release by Senior United States District Court Judge Michael Baylson "for hacking into numerous social media accounts and circulating the victims’ private photographs," United States Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero detailed in the release. Adams had previously pleaded guilty to wired fraud on Jan. 30, 2024.
The charges stemmed from an investigation into the May 2020 through Aug. 2021 hacking of 20 women's Snapchat accounts, according to the release.
Adams would target the women he knew from high school, tricking them into sending security codes to access their accounts by pretending to a Snapchat officials texting them, the USDOJ explained.
After he had those codes, he logged into the woman's account, reset the passwords, searched for "any private sexually explicit photographs in the 'My Eyes Only' section of the accounts and shared them with the victims’ contacts – their friends, family, coworkers, and acquaintances," as stated in the release. He also shared some of these images on public websites and included the victims' contact information — leading to the woman "receiving unsolicited messages from unknown individuals who had seen their private photos," according to the release. Even after he extorted money from the victims he often continued to get photos and money from them by promising to pay them for more images and then refusing to give them money or give back the photos — starting a vicious cycle of sextortion.
“It’s truly hard to understand why someone would be this cruel,” said U.S. Attorney Romero. “What’s crystal clear, though, is that Reginald Adams respects the law as little as he respects women. Again and again, he deliberately targeted, tricked, and took the most personal of photos from his victims, posting them online, violating their privacy, and causing significant emotional distress. We and our partners at the FBI take crimes like this incredibly seriously, and we’re committed to seeking justice for victims and accountability for cyber predators like Adams.”
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