29 years in federal prison for Pine City man who used Snapchat to victimize hundreds of young girls

A federal judge on Monday sentenced a 26-year-old Pine City man to decades in prison for using Snapchat to groom and abuse more than 200 young girls — more than a dozen of whom he lured to be raped.

Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz sentenced Caleb Vincent McLaughlin to more than 29 years in federal prison in what prosecutors called “by far, one of the worst online and hands-on child exploitation cases [Minnesota] has seen in recent history.”

Schiltz said Monday that the sentence was among the longest he ever imposed, and he called McLaughlin’s actions “shocking, even to someone like me, a federal judge who has been sentencing [child sex offenders] for over two decades.”

According to court records, McLaughlin used the Snapchat messaging application to exploit more than 200 girls between the ages of 11 and 16 between January 2019 and April 2023. The FBI has so far identified 26 minor victims — 12 of whom had been raped by McLaughlin — and continues to try to identify others. McLaughlin “showed a pronounced sexual interest in preteen and teenage girls, incest, bestiality, and bondage, domination, sadism, and masochism (BDSM),” according to prosecutors.

“Power, control, and cruelty were not just side effects for McLaughlin in his scheme — they were the point,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Hillary Taylor wrote in her sentencing memo, in which she called for a 35-year prison sentence.

McLaughlin’s sentence also includes 12 years of supervised release. He was charged in July 2023 and pleaded guilty in October 2023 to multiple counts of child pornography and coercion of a minor. According to court records, McLaughlin used a fake alias, “Jake Benson,” online as well as his “Lift11″ and “Tech4cm” Snapchat accounts to “hunt for young, vulnerable girls who he could use and consume for his sexual gratification.”

McLaughlin promised money, alcohol, marijuana, vape pens and other gifts in exchange for sexually explicit images and videos — or to meet him in person for sex, often in the soiled back seat of the vehicle he used for his mobile mechanic business. Such encounters were also occasionally recorded by McLaughlin and shared with others, including multiple additional victims.

He often lied about being much younger to build false relationships with minors, and law enforcement found “well over 100,000 lines of chat messages,” and thousands of sexually explicit images and videos of girls. To other users on Snapchat, McLaughlin bragged about training and “breaking” girls down: “U should get little girls to train there so fun. They need a mom. They won’t listen to there real parents any more. Only me. I own 3,” he wrote once.

Taylor described McLaughlin as having “coordinated on a massive scale to constantly cultivate relationships with children online to facilitate his manipulation of them both online and in person. That McLaughlin had tactics and scripts built up specially tailored to whether he was preying on groups of minors who were friends or preying on individual victims speaks volumes of the depths of his deliberateness and the danger he poses to children.”

“Protecting Minnesota children from the trauma of sexual exploitation is a critical part of our mission, and I thank all of our partners in law enforcement for their diligence on this investigation,” U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger said in a statement Monday.

Alvin Winston, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Minneapolis division, said Monday’s sentence “demonstrates our commitment to seek justice for our most innocent victims.”

“When our children are victimized, the FBI and our law enforcement partners will do everything in our power to hold the perpetrators accountable,” Winston said.

A message was left seeking comment from McLaughlin’s attorney.

McLaughlin, who has two young daughters, was also found to refer to incest as part of some of the false personas he concocted while hunting for victims.

According to court filings, more than a dozen victims and their family have spoken to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI. Six minor victims and guardians provided sealed impact statements for Schiltz’s consideration. Others described wanting to submit a statement or considered addressing Schiltz during sentencing but ultimately said that they could not do so out of “fear, trauma, anguish, worry about exposure despite reassurances about confidentiality, and wanting to avoid painful memories, among other reasons.”

The FBI is asking anyone with tips about others possibly victimized by McLaughlin to contact the agency at 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324) or tips.fbi.gov.

One girl told prosecutors that she believed McLaughlin would never stop preying on minors, even after having been arrested. Another girl described how McLaughlin “took advantage” of her “young mind”: “[H]e is a monster … his actions will forever haunt me.”

A mother meanwhile said that her daughter is now “very guarded” and no longer talks to people.

“She is embarrassed and blames herself for what happened,” the mother said. “She has isolated herself from her family and everyone else in her life except for one of her good friends. She feels like no one else understands, so she doesn’t open up.”

Many of the parents told prosecutors that they wanted to see McLaughlin “locked away for life.”

“I’ve always believed in second chances, but this was not a one-time thing,” the parent said. “He needs to be punished but also locked away so he can’t hurt anyone else.”