The recent sentencing of a convicted online child predator to a 40-year prison term and renewed safety warnings from federal officials mark a call for parents to double down on protecting their kids in the digital sphere, a Catholic legal scholar told OSV News.
“This is yet another recognition of the growing threat” posed by “sadistic online exploitation,” said Mary Graw Leary, professor of law at The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law in Washington and director of that school’s program in modern prosecution.
Leary — a former federal prosecutor and expert on human trafficking and victimization — shared her thoughts with OSV News following the July 8 federal sentencing of 19-year-old Alexis Aldair Chavez in San Antonio, who in 2025 pleaded guilty to racketeering and both possession and distribution of child pornography.
Espousing violence for its own sake
Chavez was an online leader of 8884, one of several nihilistic violent extremist, or NVE, groups, whose adherents espouse violence for its own sake as they seek standing among their likeminded online peers.
NVE groups operate globally across almost all social media platforms and communities most prominently Telegram, Discord, Roblox, X, Instagram, TikTok and Reddit, with activity detected as well on Minecraft, Fortnite, Twitch, Steam and Snapchat.
Group leaders — typically males under the age of 25, and sometimes barely older than their child and teen victims — rely on sextortion, coercing …