Viswa VanapalliInvestigation Discovery’s ‘Web of Lies: I See You’ chronicles the case against Ryan J. Vallee, a cyberstalker who would lock young, unsuspecting girls out of their social media accounts and would demand sexually explicit images from them. In between 2011 and 2016, he went on to do this to multiple girls, causing a tremendous detrimental effect on their lives until he was finally apprehended. Curious to know what happened to him since? Here’s everything we know!
Who is Ryan J. Vallee?
Ryan J. Vallee is from Franklin, New Hampshire. In 2012, he graduated from Belmont High School in New Hampshire. Through the years, he proceeded to display predatory behavior by targeting almost a dozen teenage girls by remotely hacking into their Facebook or Instagram accounts, emails, and Amazon accounts. In return, he would extort sexually explicit photographs from them. He hid his identity using aliases like “Seth Williams” and “James McRow” in addition to employing spoofing and anonymous text services. He was 21 years old at the time of his indictment.
In some instances, Ryan would remotely hack into the young girls’ social media accounts and once he had access to them, he would tell them that they could get their accounts back once they sent him sexually suggestive images of themselves. What’s worse, a lot of the girls he tried to extort were people he knew. One time, Ryan gained access to one teenage girl’s Amazon account. He then proceeded to order “items of a sexual nature” and shipped them to her house. Ryan had also acquired sexually explicit pictures of some of his victims and their friends even and proceeded to send them to their friends and family members.
In another particularly grim incident, Ryan made a fake Facebook profile using a name similar to a girl he was blackmailing and went to upload graphic images of her. He then sent friend requests to the people she knew. When the girls chose not to send pictures of themselves to him and instead asked to be left alone, he would threaten them with more of the same.
In 2016, Ryan pleaded guilty to 31 counts which included hacking to steal information and cyberstalking among other things. It was revealed that while Ryan was out on bail, he continued to do more of the same: preying on and harassing minors. When the authorities came to arrest Ryan then, he tried to flee in his car but eventually pulled over on his mother’s advice. At his sentencing in 2017, his defense attorney brought in expert testimony that stated that Ryan was on the autism spectrum. The defense also claimed that Ryan wasn’t emotionally mature and wasn’t able to communicate well. Nevertheless, Ryan got close to the maximum sentence.
Where is Ryan J. Vallee Now?
Ryan pleaded guilty to 13 counts of making interstate threats, one count of computer hacking to steal information, eight counts of computer hacking to extort, eight counts of aggravated identity theft, and one count of cyberstalking. He was sentenced to eight years in prison. Many of his victims spoke out at his sentencing and talked about the anguish it had caused them. “It definitely changed the way I go about my life and my day-to-day life,” one victim said. “He knows where I live now, so that’s kind of scary. I have social anxiety and I don’t sleep very well at night.”
Another victim said, “I don’t know how I’ll ever feel comfortable even if he’s in jail. I feel like I can’t trust anyone.” The judge stated that while the autism spectrum diagnosis was considered, he felt that Ryan was capable of understanding right from wrong and so that didn’t excuse his actions. Conditions of his sentence included treatment for mental health, serving his sentence at a correctional institution close to his family, and that he would be on parole for three years after his release. He remains incarcerated at a federal prison in Massachusetts.
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