On September 3, Dylan Williams, a 27-year-old active-duty Air Force airman stationed at Dover Air Force Base, made his initial appearance in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware for allegedly raping a Bucks County teen he met on Snapchat. Federal prosecutors charged Williams with coercion and enticement, transportation with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct. If convicted, Williams faces a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years in federal prison. According to court records, Williams will remain in federal custody until his detention hearing.
On August 20, the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office filed a parallel case against Williams. In that case, Williams is charged with three counts of unlawful contact with a minor and one count of corruption of minors. There is yet to be a preliminary hearing in that case, which is currently inactive. Williams also faces a third, separate investigation in Kent County, Delaware, where he is charged with rape.
On June 13, Williams allegedly began communicating with the 15-year-old girl on Snapchat. According to a federal criminal complaint filed on August 28 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, Williams purportedly sent sexually explicit messages to the victim over the course of three months, through which he learned and acknowledged her age. During this time period, Williams arranged to meet the victim in Bucks County and allegedly coerced her into performing a sex act in his car.
In early August, Williams continued messaging the victim, allegedly asserting that he wanted “to take ownership” of her and asking “how bad [she] want[ed to be] kidnapped.” On August 19, Williams purportedly discussed picking the victim up from her home, instructing her to block him, sneak out of her house, and leave her phone behind. During the early morning hours of August 20, Williams drove several hours from Dover, Delaware to Falls Township, Pennsylvaniato pick up the 15-year-old near her home. He then transported her across state lines back to his home at Dover Air Force Base, where he allegedly engaged in illicit sexual acts with her.
Later that day, the victim’s parents reported the victim missing after her mother found her cellphone and discovered concerning messages with an unknown man. The Falls Township Police Department held a press conferenceand asked for the public’s help in locating the victim. With permission from the victim’s parents, investigators searched through the victim’s phone and identified Williams through his Snapchat account. Investigators then submitted an emergency request to Snapchat to retrieve message history. Using cellphone records, authorities tracked pings from Williams’ phone to the Dover Air Force Base.
That afternoon, investigators from the Dover Police Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Air Force Office of Special Investigations, and U.S. Marshals Service confronted Williams at work. Williams admitted that the victim was at his residence in Dover, where authorities safely located her in the basement. She was immediately transported to Kent General Hospital for evaluation and treatment. This case was investigated through Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide Department of Justice initiative aimed at combating child sexual exploitation and abuse through coordinated multi-agency law enforcement responses.
Cases involving military personnel highlight a concerning intersection between the military and sexual exploitation. Recent prosecutions illustrate the scale of this misconduct. In 2025, an Army soldier at Fort Bragg was dishonorably discharged and sentenced to fifty years in prison after pleading guilty to multiple child sexual exploitation and child sexual abuse material (CSAM) offenses involving his use of social media to groom and exploit over thirty minors across the country. Upon his release from prison, he will be required to register as a sex offender. Additionally, a National Guard soldier stationed at Fort Gordon was dishonorably discharged and was sentenced to thirteen years in prison after pleading guilty to attempted enticement of a minor, sexual exploitation of a child, production and distribution of CSAM, and sexual abuse of a child involving indecent exposure. The soldier also used social media to target minors across state and international lines and will similarly be required to register as a sex offender.
Service members hold positions of authority, trust, and public duty dedicated to protecting the nation. Betraying that public duty to exploit minors is incompatible with military core values and is a grotesque abuse of power. Addressing these offenses requires direct action within the military. To prevent sexual exploitation, the military must prioritize training on exploitation, establish reporting mechanisms for suspicious behavior, and hold personnel fully accountable.
The CSE Institute applauds the efforts of the Falls Township Police Department, the Dover Police Department, the FBI Delaware Violent Crime and Safe Streets Task Force, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, and the U.S. Marshals Service for locating the victim and preventing further harm.
The CSE Institute will continue to provide updates on this matter.
All views expressed therein are personal to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law or of Villanova University.