Modesto Man Gets 37 Years for Preying on Girls via Snapchat

A Modesto man will spend more than 37 years in federal prison for sexually exploiting minors he targeted through Snapchat, federal officials announced this week. Jacob Jacobsen, 31, was sentenced on Monday to 37 years and six months behind bars, to be followed by a decade of supervised release, for sexual exploitation of minors and receipt of child sexual abuse material.

According to the Department of Justice, the sentence was handed down in federal court in Fresno. Court records show Jacobsen targeted dozens of underage girls on Snapchat using the screen names trippinj and treydawgg2000, frequently claiming to be 16 or 17 years old in order to solicit sexually explicit media from them. In an announcement posted to X, FBI Sacramento confirmed Jacobsen will also pay $25,000 in special assessments and forfeit all devices used in the crimes.

A Mother's Tip From Memphis Cracked the Case

The investigation did not start in California. It began when the mother of a 13-year-old girl in Memphis, Tennessee, discovered Snapchat communications between Jacobsen and her daughter and alerted local authorities, per the Justice Department's account. That single report by a vigilant parent set off a cross-country federal investigation reaching from Tennessee back to Jacobsen's home in Modesto.

After his arrest, Jacobsen admitted to federal investigators that he had actively solicited and obtained sexually explicit images of underage girls for more than five years before he was taken into custody, according to GV Wire. The confession underscored just how long the pattern of predatory contact had continued before anyone caught it.

FBI Sought More Victims After 2022 Indictment

The case traces back to November 17, 2022, when a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of California returned a five-count indictment against Jacobsen, charging him with four counts of sexual exploitation of a child and one count of receipt of child pornography, the Justice Department's earlier release states. Weeks later, the FBI issued an international appeal seeking additional victims, revealing that Jacobsen had also operated under the Instagram handle loudpack.sd and used aliases including Jacob, Jake, James, and Trey, according to FBI.gov.

A federal detention order issued around the same time in November 2022 painted a troubling portrait of Jacobsen's background. Per GovInfo, the order cited a history of drug and alcohol abuse, a prior criminal record, previous failures to appear in court, probation violations, and what the filing described as nonstop or daily contacts with minors.

Multiple FBI Field Offices Worked the Case

Bringing Jacobsen to justice required cooperation across state lines. The investigation involved coordinated operations by the Memphis Police Department, the FBI's Nashville Field Office, the FBI Sacramento Field Office's Ripon Resident Agency, and the FBI's Exploited Child Operational Unit, the Justice Department said. FBI Sacramento's own announcement of the sentencing similarly credited the FBI Nashville office for its role investigating the case alongside Sacramento agents.

The prosecution fell under Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide Justice Department initiative launched in May 2006 to pool federal, state, and local resources against internet-facilitated child sexual abuse. Assistant U.S. Attorney David Gappa prosecuted the case in the Fresno division of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, GV Wire reported.

Jacobsen's sentence closes out a case that stretched nearly four years from indictment to sentencing, built initially on the instincts of one parent thousands of miles away who noticed something wrong in her daughter's Snapchat messages.