CINCINNATI, Ohio – A 43-year-old New York man is facing federal charges after investigators say he used Snapchat to locate and repeatedly meet a missing Colerain Township, Ohio, teenager — crossing state lines twice to do so.
Kyle D. Lawrence, of Buffalo, was arrested at his home on February 26 and appeared in federal court in New York the following day.
According to federal charging documents, it started when Colerain Township police began investigating a missing teenager on February 16. Surveillance footage from the teen’s home showed her climbing into a black Jeep Grand Cherokee with New York plates back in January. Investigators traced the vehicle to Lawrence through license plate readers and rental receipts, confirming he and the minor stayed together at a Cincinnati hotel on January 31.
Snapchat Was the Weapon
Lawrence told agents he connected with the teenager through Snapchat and used the app’s location services to track and pick her up — traveling to the Cincinnati area twice in January to meet her. Federal cyber tip reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children had already flagged Lawrence’s Snapchat account for child exploitation activity before the Colerain Township case ever surfaced.
A Pattern Across Borders
This was not Lawrence’s first brush with law enforcement. In May 2024, he was reported to the FBI after a citizen vigilante group confronted him in Canada, where he allegedly traveled to have sexual contact with a purported 15-year-old girl. FBI agents in Buffalo had already been in contact with Lawrence following that report.
When federal agents executed a search warrant at his Buffalo residence on February 26, they seized multiple electronic devices containing child sexual abuse material.
What He’s Facing
Lawrence is charged with three federal counts — transportation with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, which carries a minimum of 10 years and up to life in prison; travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, carrying up to 30 years; and transportation of child pornography, which carries five to 20 years in prison.
The investigation is a joint effort between FBI divisions in Cincinnati and Buffalo, Colerain Township Police Department, New York State Police, and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. The case is being prosecuted as part of Project Safe Childhood, a Department of Justice initiative targeting child sexual exploitation.
The search for the missing teenager remains ongoing.
Lawrence is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law.