Social Media Victims Law Center Lawsuit Claims Snap’s Design Enabled Predator to Find, Groom, and Sexually Assault 12‑Year‑Old Missouri Girl

Alleges Snapchat’s features including Bitmoji avatars, Quick Add, and location sharing create an ideal tool for predators to reach minors; nearly 11.5 million or 55 percent of US teens use Snapchat

SEATTLE, WA – JUNE 25, 2026 – The Social Media Victims Law Center, a legal advocacy organization representing parents of children harmed by social media and AI platforms, and the Holland Law Firm announced today that they have filed a lawsuit against Snap, Inc. on behalf of the family of a 12‑year‑old Missouri girl, “J.F.” The lawsuit alleges that Snapchat’s design and recommendation systems connected her to a 25‑year‑old predator who groomed and sexually assaulted her.

According to the complaint, Snapchat’s core design features –  including disappearing messages, location‑sharing tools, Bitmoji avatars, and its Quick Add friend‑recommendation engine, among others – created a dangerous environment for minors that Snap knew predators routinely exploited. The lawsuit asserts that these product choices directly facilitated the predator’s access to J.F., enabling him to groom, manipulate, and ultimately assault her.

In late 2021, J.F. should have been spending time with friends, going to school, and enjoying her childhood. Instead, Snap’s Quick Add algorithm recommended an adult predator, Gabriel Joel Valentin‑Rios, to her as a “friend,” even suggesting they shared mutual real‑world friends.

Snap’s Bitmoji avatar system allowed him to create a fake profile and disguise himself as a harmless teenage boy, depriving J.F. of any ability to recognize that she was communicating with an adult male who was targeting young girls. Valentin‑Rios exchanged thousands of messages with J.F., her cousin, and other minors who believed he was a local high school boy.

Over several months, Valentin‑Rios groomed, used sextortion, and pressured J.F. into exchanging explicit photographs. On September 16, 2021, he coerced her into meeting him in person and raped her.

Snap also allowed Valentin‑Rios to create multiple accounts in violation of the company’s own Terms of Agreement. One of these accounts, “Nocits21g” was created a week before the assault on J.F. to target other teen girls. Snap’s Quick Add feature connected the account to more than a dozen young girls ages 12 to 16 whom he then allegedly sexually solicited and/or abused.

It also contends that Snap made a deliberate decision to allow its product to be used by children under the age of 13, even when those users openly disclosed their age through public posts, photographs, references to their school, and other clear indicators of being underage.

“Snapchat’s design choices created the conditions that allowed a 25yearold predator to find, groom, and sexually assault a 12yearold child,” said Matthew P. Bergman, founding attorney of the Social Media Victims Law Center. “This assault did not happen in a vacuum — it happened because Snapchat’s product design made it easy for a predator to reach and manipulate an unsuspecting child. Snap executives have long known that their features create a perfect environment for predators to exploit children, yet they have repeatedly failed to make the platform safe.”

In 2024, Snap executives received a 133‑page child‑abuse manual known as the “Sextortion Handbook,” published on the dark web, which explicitly “focuses on the use of Snapchat.” The author claims to have blackmailed more than 3,000 girls and provides detailed instructions on exploiting Snapchat’s design features to target minors. The Handbook instructs predators to use Snapchat’s Quick Add feature to connect with large numbers of children, Snap Map to identify nearby schools and to view Stories posted by students.

“Snapchat’s design failures didn’t just create risk – they created the exact conditions that allowed a 25‑year‑old predator to reach and exploit a Missouri child,” said Eric D. Holland, founding member of the Holland Law Firm in St. Louis. “Families deserve to know the truth about how these platforms actually operate, and this lawsuit is an important step toward getting those facts into the open right here in the courts of the Show-Me State. For too long, social media companies have hidden behind secrecy while their products expose children to preventable harm. This case will help lift the veil on the choices Snap made – choices that made it easier for predators to hide, easier to contact minors, and harder for parents to protect their kids.”

J.F.’s experience is not an isolated incident. Law enforcement agencies globally report that over 80 percent of child‑sexual‑grooming cases involve Snapchat, making it the most widely used platform for online grooming in the world.

Gabriel Joel Valentin‑Rios, who lived in St. Charles County, Missouri, pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting J.F. and is currently serving an 18‑year prison sentence.

The lawsuit was filed in the Circuit Court of St. Charles County, Missouri.