A 37-year-old Texas man will spend the next 40 years in prison after a Sumner County judge convicted him of sexually exploiting a local teenager he first contacted on Snapchat when she was just 12 years old. Alex Torres was found guilty of continuous sexual abuse of a child, sexual exploitation of a minor less than 13 years of age by electronic means, and especially aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor.
According to the Portland Police Department, the case began in February 2025, when Torres started messaging the Sumner County child, who was 12 at the time, on Snapchat. The department says the exchanges quickly turned sexual, with Torres sending unsolicited sexual images and videos of himself to the girl while also soliciting and receiving sexual images and videos from her. The two even discussed a plan to meet in person and run away together, police said.
The case broke open in July 2025 when a mother discovered inappropriate Snapchat communications involving her daughter and brought them to Portland police, prompting Detective Charles Hope to open an investigation, per the department's account. Hope worked to unmask the anonymous Snapchat account and ultimately identified the sender as Torres, then 36, according to the department. The investigation was handled by the Portland Police Department's Criminal Investigations Division.
Grand Jury Indictment and a Cross-State Arrest
Torres was indicted by a grand jury on the child exploitation charges, and the U.S. Marshals Service later arrested him in Texas, the Portland Police Department reported. He was subsequently booked into the Sumner County jail on a $1,000,000 bond while the case moved through the courts.
Circuit Court Judge Jennifer Nichols, who was appointed to the newly created 18th Judicial District circuit court bench in July 2024 after previously serving as an Assistant District Attorney in Sumner County, according to the State of Tennessee, ultimately found Torres guilty and sentenced him to 40 years in prison.
No Parole, No Early Release, Lifetime Monitoring
Because Torres was convicted of continuous sexual abuse of a child, Tennessee law strips away any chance of shortening that sentence. Under Tennessee Code § 40-35-501(l), defendants convicted of that offense committed on or after July 1, 2014, must serve 100 percent of the court-imposed sentence with no eligibility for probation, parole, or sentence reduction credits, according to FindLaw. The Portland Police Department confirmed that Torres is ineligible for probation, parole, or any form of early release.
Continuous sexual abuse of a child involving three or more qualifying acts is a Class A felony in Tennessee, carrying a statutory range of 15 to 60 years under Tennessee Code § 40-35-111(b)(1), per WomensLaw.org — placing Torres's 40-year term well within that severe range. Once he eventually completes his prison term, Torres will not simply walk free. Tennessee Code § 39-13-524 mandates community supervision for life for anyone convicted of continuous sexual abuse of a child, a requirement that begins immediately upon release from custody, according to N. Cate Law.
A District Attorney's Office Under New Leadership
The Sumner County District Attorney's Office, which secured the 40-year sentence, said it will continue prosecuting people who sexually exploit children in the county and warned parents to monitor their children's apps and online communications. The 18th Judicial District DA's Office is now led by Thomas B. Dean, who was appointed in 2025 by Governor Bill Lee, succeeding 45-year veteran prosecutor Ray Whitley, according to the 18th Judicial District DA's Office.
Cases like this one often rely on specialized local support to protect young victims during investigations. Ashley's Place, the Sumner Child Advocacy Center in Gallatin, partners with local police departments and the District Attorney's Office to conduct multidisciplinary forensic interviews of juvenile abuse victims across the county, according to Ashley's Place, offering a neutral, child-friendly setting meant to avoid re-traumatizing victims.
Part of a Wider Surge in Online Enticement
The Torres case fits into a national pattern of skyrocketing online child enticement reports. CyberTipline data from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children showed reports of online child enticement nationwide jumped from 292,951 in the first half of 2024 to 518,720 in the first half of 2025, per Helping Survivors of Sexual Abuse & Assault. Testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has identified Snapchat as one of four primary digital platforms generating the majority of online child sexual exploitation reports submitted to NCMEC, reflecting concerns that ephemeral messaging features are frequently exploited by predators for online solicitation.
The sentencing also lands amid an active regional crackdown. Sumner County law enforcement agencies arrested at least six individuals in early 2026 during a multi-week enforcement push against child sexual exploitation, as Hoodline previously reported. That same period saw a Portland restaurant manager convicted for grooming a local teen via Snapchat and another Portland man sentenced to triple life with no parole under the same continuous child abuse statutes, while a license plate hit this summer led officers to a Portland man wanted on seven electronic child sexual exploitation warrants.
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