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…