A 31-year-old San Jose man pleaded guilty this week to cyberstalking and aggravated identity theft after prosecutors said he broke into the social media accounts of more than 6,000 young women, downloaded hundreds of thousands of explicit images and videos, and then used that material to harass and threaten his victims. Max Yang Chen entered his plea before a federal judge in Buffalo, New York, far from his home on the West Coast, in a case that spanned years and reached victims across multiple states.
Chen pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge John L. Sinatra Jr. to cyberstalking and aggravated identity theft, according to syracuse.com. Prosecutors said Chen, a California resident, gained unauthorized access to hundreds of young women's social media accounts between March 2021 and June 18, 2023, including accounts belonging to at least three women in Western New York.
Thousands of Victims, Hundreds of Thousands of Images
Once inside an account, Chen allegedly searched for sexually explicit photos of the women and downloaded them, per the same outlet's reporting. In total, prosecutors said he obtained hundreds of thousands of explicit images and videos belonging to more than 6,000 young women — a scale that investigators say extended well beyond New York state.
Chen didn't stop at collecting the material, prosecutors said. He posted victims' explicit images on their own social media profiles, apparently to prove to them that he had broken into their accounts, and he sent sexually demeaning or violent messages to the women he contacted, the report states.
Extortion Attempts and Direct Contact With Victims
Prosecutors said Chen directly contacted more than 200 young women whose explicit images he had obtained, and sent more than 50 of them sexually explicit images of themselves — a tactic apparently meant to demonstrate the extent of his access. In some cases, he attempted to extort victims into sending additional explicit images, threatening to keep their photos posted online unless they complied, according to the account relayed by the same outlet.
The pattern described in the case echoes warnings federal authorities have issued about a broader wave of account intrusions targeting young women online. The FBI has said criminal actors have illegally accessed social media and personal accounts to steal and post non-consensual intimate images, in some cases for sale on criminal marketplaces, according to an Internet Crime Complaint Center public service announcement. Separately, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children reported a 1,325 percent increase in CyberTipline reports involving generative-AI technology in 2024, along with a continued rise in sextortion reports.
Separate Child Pornography Charge Still Pending
Beyond the Buffalo case, Chen was also charged with attempted production of child pornography in the Central District of California, and those charges remain pending, prosecutors said. The cyberstalking and aggravated identity theft charges to which Chen pleaded guilty carry a maximum sentence of seven years in prison and a $250,000 fine, syracuse.com reported.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for Western New York said Chen's sentencing will be scheduled at a later date. Federal prosecutors in the district had previously charged him with three counts of obtaining information from a protected computer, three counts of cyberstalking and three counts of aggravated identity theft when he was arrested, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, Western District of New York.
The FBI's Buffalo Field Office had previously said it was seeking to identify additional potential victims of Chen as part of its investigation into the unauthorized-device-intrusion and cyberstalking allegations, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Part of a Wider Pattern of Cyberstalking Prosecutions
Chen's case joins a string of recent federal cyberstalking prosecutions involving hacked accounts and explicit images. In Oregon, a Granite Bay, California, man pleaded guilty to cyberstalking his ex-girlfriend and posting sexually explicit photos of her online, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Oregon. In Massachusetts, a man pleaded guilty after prosecutors said he ran sustained online harassment campaigns against more than a half-dozen women over 16 years, including hacking into their personal accounts, per the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts. And in Ohio, a Columbus man was sentenced to 15 years in prison for cyberstalking former partners and creating AI-generated obscene material involving adults and children, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Ohio.
