Two Western Pa. Men Receive Lengthy Federal Sentences in Child Exploitation Cases

Overview

• Ryan Peters, 36, of McKees Rocks, was sentenced on Nov. 12, 2025, to 14 years in prison followed by 15 years of supervised release by Senior U.S. District Judge Arthur J. Schwab.
• Prosecutors said Peters tried to meet someone he believed was a 12-year-old after soliciting explicit images, but the messages were with an undercover FBI agent who arrested him when he arrived on Sept. 13, 2021.
• A search of Peters’s home based on tips to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children uncovered devices, including a phone hidden in a cat litterbox, containing five videos and 11 images of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
• Richard Snyder, 54, of East Pittsburgh, was sentenced on Oct. 29, 2025, to 130 months in prison and 15 years of supervised release by U.S. District Judge Robert J. Colville.
• Court filings state Snyder accessed child sexual abuse material on a social media site from July 15 to Aug. 3, 2023, violating supervised-release conditions from a 2012 case, with DHS-Pittsburgh, the FBI and AUSAs Carl J. Spindler and Heidi M. Grogan credited in the prosecutions.