A federal judge has ordered a Silver Spring man who terrorized girls online to spend the bulk of his life behind bars, handing down a 50-year prison sentence in a sprawling sextortion case that stretched across platforms, state lines and even borders.
U.S. District Judge Theodore D. Chuang on Tuesday sentenced 28-year-old Chase William Mulligan in Greenbelt, after prosecutors said he coerced more than 100 girls into creating sexually explicit photos and videos. The prison term will be followed by 25 years of supervised release. Investigators say Mulligan spent years using chat rooms and social apps to groom and blackmail victims, targeting children as young as five. The scope of the case triggered multiagency investigations and drew attention for its international reach.
According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland, Mulligan was sentenced on Feb. 17 after pleading guilty to two counts of producing child sexual abuse material. Prosecutors said his scheme ran from 2019 through December 2023 and involved at least 108 victims between the ages of 5 and 17. They said he used accounts on Snapchat, Discord, Roblox, Skype, Omegle and Instagram to pressure girls into sending explicit images and videos.
Plea documents reviewed by Bethesda Magazine say investigators executed a search warrant at Mulligan’s home on Dec. 20, 2023 and seized more than 20 electronic devices. Those records state that law enforcement ultimately found at least 15,000 files of child sexual abuse material on the devices, including more than 1,000 files that prosecutors say Mulligan himself produced.
How Investigators Built The Case
Investigators traced IP addresses tied to suspicious online accounts back to Mulligan’s Silver Spring residence and to a family property in Rehoboth Beach. The initial 2023 raid turned up multiple hard drives and phones, providing the digital trail that underpinned the case. The Washington Post reported those details and quoted FBI officials who called Mulligan “a depraved and dangerous predator.” Federal agents said his threats to post images or show up at victims’ homes were central to how he coerced children into continuing contact.
Prosecution And Sentence
Prosecutors said the case was brought under the Department of Justice’s Project Safe Childhood initiative, which focuses on identifying and prosecuting child exploitation crimes. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland credited a multiagency investigation and noted that Mulligan will remain under federal supervision for 25 years after he leaves prison. Authorities said the probe required coordination with the FBI as well as state and international partners.
Why Experts Say This Matters
Advocates and law enforcement point to Mulligan’s case as a stark example of a fast-rising problem: online enticement and sextortion targeting children. In its 2024 CyberTipline report, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) logged more than 546,000 reports of online enticement, a 192% jump from 2023. For families trying to clean up the digital fallout, NCMEC’s Take It Down service offers help with removing self-generated explicit content from participating platforms.
Legal Context
Mulligan pleaded guilty in May 2025 to two counts of producing child sexual abuse material under a plea agreement that, prosecutors said, carried a mandatory minimum of 15 years and a statutory maximum of 60 years. As reported by Bethesda Magazine, the agreement also requires Mulligan to register as a sex offender wherever he lives, works or studies. The 50-year sentence imposed this week reflects prosecutors’ view of the extraordinary scale and cruelty of the conduct.
Authorities urged anyone who believes they or someone they know may have been victimized to contact local law enforcement or the FBI and to reach out to child-safety organizations for help and reporting options. The case highlights how offenders can weaponize multiple platforms and cross borders with relative ease, and it underscores the continuing role of federal task forces in tracking and prosecuting online child sex crimes.
