Two Pittsburgh-area men have admitted in federal court to running a Snapchat hacking scheme that prosecutors say targeted hundreds of people and stripped intimate photos from their private accounts, including images involving minors, authorities said.
According to CBS Pittsburgh, the pair, described by prosecutors in recent hearings as among the ringleaders of the operation, entered guilty pleas this week in federal court. The station reports the pleas mark the latest turn in a sprawling case that grew out of a multi-count federal indictment unsealed in 2023.
Federal indictment named seven suspects
As outlined by the U.S. Department of Justice, a federal grand jury in Erie returned a 16-count indictment on July 18, 2023, charging seven people with conspiring to hack Snapchat accounts, pull sexually explicit images, and then share or sell them online. The indictment names Richard Alan Martz Jr., Dylan Michael Miller, Christopher Clampitt, Edward Grabb, Michael Yackovich, Luke Robert Swinehart, and Karlin Terrell Jones. According to the DOJ release, the defendants “used deception and hacking techniques” to pry into private content, and the FBI led the investigation that produced the charges.
How prosecutors say the scheme worked
Prosecutors have described a phishing-style setup in which suspects triggered Snapchat’s verification process and, at the same time, messaged account holders while pretending to be the company in order to grab the one-time authorization codes. With those codes in hand, investigators say, the group reset passwords and slipped into the accounts to reach stored photos and videos. Once inside, according to court testimony, the defendants allegedly downloaded or screenshotted intimate material and sorted it into folders that were then traded or sold online. Court filings and a cooperating defendant’s guilty plea show the reach investigators say they uncovered: Michael Yackovich admitted in March that he tried to access roughly 500 accounts and pointed to a Dropbox folder labeled “Local Girls” that contained hundreds of victim folders, as reported by the Mon Valley Independent.
Legal implications
The DOJ announcement spells out stiff potential penalties under federal law, with statutory maximums that can add up to decades in prison and significant fines depending on the specific counts and the defendant. Sentencing will ultimately be decided by the judge, who must weigh the conduct in the case and any prior criminal history. Prosecutors told the court that victims were repeatedly re-victimized as the images continued to circulate.
Authorities say the investigation is still active and additional court proceedings are ahead. Yackovich, who pleaded guilty in March, is set to be sentenced on June 22, according to reporting on the plea hearing. The U.S. Attorney’s Office has urged anyone who believes they may be a victim in the case to contact the Victim Witness Coordinator at [email protected] to receive case updates and information about their rights.
Federal investigators and prosecutors are also using the case as a cautionary tale about digital security. They recommend turning on two-factor authentication that does not rely solely on text messages, creating unique passwords for each account, and treating any unsolicited request for verification codes as a major red flag. The FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office are encouraging anyone with information related to the scheme to come forward as the remaining defendants continue through the courts.
