BUFFALO, New York — A San Jose, California, man has pleaded guilty in federal court in Buffalo to cyberstalking and aggravated identity theft in a case involving hacked social-media accounts and stolen private images, federal prosecutors said.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of New York, reported Oct. 23, 2026
Max Yang Chen, 31, entered the plea before U.S. District Judge John L. Sinatra Jr., U.S. Attorney Michael DiGiacomo announced on October 23, 2026. Chen faces a maximum combined penalty of seven years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. A sentencing date has not yet been scheduled, prosecutors said.
The Buffalo News separately reported the plea in its October police and court coverage, noting that Chen's victims included three women in Western New York and that he admitted gaining access to sexual images in their social-media accounts and extorting them.
Source: The Buffalo News, October police and court coverage
What the plea agreement says
According to the plea agreement, between March 2021 and June 18, 2023, Chen compromised social-media accounts belonging to hundreds of young women. Prosecutors said he searched private accounts for sexually explicit photographs and videos, downloaded the material, and used it to harass, intimidate and pressure victims into providing additional images.
Investigators determined that Chen unlawfully accessed at least 200 social-media accounts and directly contacted more than 200 young women whose intimate material he had obtained, prosecutors said. More than 50 women received sexually explicit images of themselves from Chen as part of the documented conduct, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors also said Chen obtained and possessed hundreds of thousands of explicit photographs and videos depicting more than 6,000 young women. They noted that this figure does not establish that every one of those individuals had an account directly compromised by Chen — a distinction this report keeps, because the larger collection and the accounts he directly accessed are not the same thing.
How the case began
The Western District of New York case originated with three victims in that district. In March 2024, prosecutors announced a nine-count indictment charging Chen with obtaining information from a protected computer, cyberstalking and aggravated identity theft, the Justice Department said at the time. The October 2026 plea covers the cyberstalking and aggravated identity theft offences announced by prosecutors.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Western District of New York (2024 indictment announcement)
Prosecutors said Chen also faces a separate federal charge in the Central District of California. That case remains pending and is separate from the Buffalo plea; no conviction has been announced on it, and he is presumed innocent of that allegation unless proven guilty.
The FBI conducted the investigation. The case is a warning for social-media users in California, New York and elsewhere: account takeovers can turn private material into a tool of extortion, and victims should preserve messages and report the contact to the platform and law enforcement rather than comply with demands.