Snapchat video leads to child sex abuse charges against Jefferson Hills teen

An 18-year-old Jefferson Hills woman is facing trial on charges that she hacked into a former friend’s social media account and disseminated a sexually explicit video and photos after their friendship soured.

Rachel Kazimer is scheduled to be arraigned later this month in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court on four charges of sexual abuse of children, including possession of child pornography, two counts of harassment and one count of computer trespass.

The allegations against Kazimer center on an explicit video that police say she obtained without permission from the Snapchat account of a former friend, whom police did not identify.

That video, according to police, was taken in September and showed the former friend and another person — both under 18 at the time — involved in a consensual sex act. Police consider the pair, who made the video, to be Kazimer’s victims.

Police believe Kazimer got access to the video last fall after the former friend borrowed Kazimer’s cellphone to log into Snapchat before the two had a falling out, according to a criminal complaint.

The former friend suspects Kazimer sent a copy of the video to a witness, also a juvenile, who was not publicly identified, police said.

Police said Kazimer also sent the video and a naked picture of one of the victims to a group chat on Dec. 12, and on Jan. 10 sent other explicit images to a group chat.

Kazimer’s lawyer, Brian Farrington, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

One local FBI agent said cases such as the one against Kazimer should serve as a cautionary tale about the importance of properly safeguarding social media accounts.

Tim Wolford, supervisory special agent of the crimes against children task force in Pittsburgh’s FBI office, said people should watch out for unknown devices logging into their personal accounts as well as phishing emails or phone calls.

Tigerray17

The video became fodder for gossip as part of an ongoing feud among a group of former friends at Thomas Jefferson High School in the West Jefferson Hills School District, the complaint said.

On Jan. 10, a juvenile, who was not named in the complaint, used Instagram to send a still photo from the video to Kazimer’s former friend, identified by police as Victim #1.

Accompanying the photo was a message with an “implied threat that they would further disseminate the video in retaliation” for the feud, according to the complaint.

Police said the juvenile “noted” the video had been sent to them and that the juvenile was informed by Kazimer that “it was on her camera roll from a while ago,” police said.

That same day, police said, Kazimer sent a screenshot image of the video to a group chat, according to police.

Police provided excerpts in the criminal complaint of several exchanges among students discussing the images over social media.

The students were identified only by their Snapchat usernames. Among them, police said, was Kazimer, who police said posted as tigerray17.

That was the same username that sent the video to the unnamed witness, police said.

Police used a search warrant and conversations on Snapchat to link Kazimer to the tigerray17 account and the dissemination of the explicit images.

“A review of Rachel Kazimer’s Snapchat conversations further indicated that Kazimer had accessed Victim #1’s Snap Inc. account and obtained the video along with other photos of Victim #1 naked,” police wrote in their complaint.

The two people who were in the video went to police on Jan. 11.

That day, the images became a topic of discussion in the group chat. Participants, including tigerray17, discussed deleting explicit images, what police might be able to find and the prospect of going to jail.

Teenage twist

Police said their investigation showed that Kazimer logged into her Snapchat account while on the West Jefferson Hills School District’s internet connection.

Jeffrey Nelson, a district spokesman, said “the district’s administrators were not formally notified” of the incidents.

Wolford, the FBI agent, said that usually when someone is trying to gain access to sexually explicit content saved on social media, they plan to use it for personal pleasure or extortion.

However, Wolford said he typically sees teenagers as the victim in these types of cases, not acting as the alleged perpetrator.

Wolford also said most crimes against children involve men; however, law enforcement is beginning to see more cases with women as the perpetrators.

“It’s changing,” he said.