A Franklin man pleaded guilty to extorting almost a dozen underage girls to send him sexually explicit photos over the internet.
U.S. District Attorney Emily Rice, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Secret Service announced Thursday that Ryan Vallee, 22, of Franklin admitted guilt to a 31-count indictment accusing him of “sextortion,” including making interstate threats, hacking computers, aggravated identity theft and cyberstalking.
In his plea, Vallee admitted to using aliases and hacking computers between 2011 and 2016 to force “numerous” victims to send him sexually explicit photos of themselves and others, according to the Department of Justice.
In at least once instance, Vallee said he took control of a victim’s Amazon.com account, ordered items of a sexual nature and shipped them to her home according to the plea agreement. He also took control of victims’ social media accounts, posted sexually explicit photos and then distributed them to the family and friends of the victims.
Court documents indicate that Vallee repeatedly made threats via text message to continue his hacking activity if victims did not send sexual photographs of themselves.
The plea agreement shows that when victims refused to comply and begged him to leave them alone, Valley would threaten additional harm.
Vallee was charged in July, and was already in custody from a previous arrest in March. He is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 1.
The U.S. Secret Service and the Belmont Police Department investigated the case, with the Department of Justice Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section and the U.S. District Attorney’s office in New Hampshire acting as prosecutors.
The Department of Justice encourages all victims of similar crimes to not hesitate to come forward and contact their local police department.