‘A living nightmare’: WA man gets 10 years for hacking Snapchat accounts, soliciting child abuse

A 32-year-old man from La Center was sentenced to 10 years in prison Friday for a scheme to access private photos by posing as tech support to hack accounts on Snapchat, a social media app.

Dylan Rex was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 15 years of supervised release after he pleaded guilty to 16 counts of various crimes, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Friday.

In August 2025, Rex pleaded guilty to seven counts of wire fraud, seven counts of computer fraud, one count of child pornography possession, and one count of attempted enticement of a minor.

“This defendant is the dangerous stranger lurking on the internet that every parent fears,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Neil Floyd stated. “And he made the deception even worse by posing as tech support to get access to private images. I commend the cyber investigators at the FBI for bringing him to justice.”

WA man defrauded more than 170 victims

Between July 2020 and March 2023, Rex defrauded more than 170 victims of their private and intimate photos that were stored in their Snapchat accounts, according to records filed in the case.

Rex would use false phone numbers and email addresses to appear as a member of the Snapchat tech support team. He would then trigger a password reset message to the victim and ask the victim to provide a six-digit code to assist them in reclaiming their account.

Once the victim provided the six-digit code, Rex would lock them out of the account and steal the images. Many of the images and videos he stole would then be circulated on the internet, leading to harassment and extortion of the victims.

Rex offered payment for child abuse

The Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Seattle field office, W. Mike Herrington, noted that Rex also offered to pay the mother of a child under 10 to sexually abuse the child and send him video of the abuse.

“When law enforcement searched Mr. Rex’s residence, they uncovered media depicting the mother abusing her minor child, along with hundreds of images of child sexual abuse material on multiple devices,” Herrington said.

On March 29, 2023, law enforcement searched Rex’s residence and seized several digital devices. In total, agents found more than 600 images of child sexual abuse material on eight different devices.

“What Dylan Rex did was calculated, cruel, and downright depraved,” Ted E. Docks, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Boston Division, stated. “To make matters worse, he possessed and distributed child sexual abuse material and even went as far as enticing a young mother into sexually abusing her own child, and documenting that abuse for his own sick gratification.”

In the prosecutors’ request for a 10-year sentence and 15 years of supervised release, they wrote to the court, “Rex’s sole purpose of hacking into the victims’ Snapchat accounts was to hunt for intimate and sexually suggestive photographs and/or videos of young women that he would in turn share or trade on the internet. Although Rex may not have participated directly in the harassment and intimidation of these victims using their stolen imagery, he undoubtedly contributed to it. His actions created a living nightmare for many of these victims.”

Voyeurism charges in Clark County

The search of Rex’s devices also led to one state court conviction on October 16, 2025. Rex was sentenced to 90 days in custody after he pleaded guilty to two counts of voyeurism in Clark County Superior Court.

In this case, Rex photographed and filmed victims, including minors, without their knowledge or consent. Rex placed a recording device in a bathroom to capture the images of the victims.

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