Ryan McCaffery

Introduction

Ryan McCaffery is a former Long Island high school teacher and soccer coach who was sentenced on October 21, 2026 to three years in state prison for posing as a teenage boy on Snapchat to solicit nude images from underage girls — conduct Suffolk County prosecutors say ran parallel to his sharing and attempting to purchase child sexual abuse material on the messaging app Kik. McCaffery, 38, of Ridge, worked as a social studies teacher and junior varsity boys soccer coach at Riverhead High School until his February 2025 resignation, and is already serving a five-year sentence in New Jersey for similar crimes; the New York term runs concurrently. He pleaded guilty the previous month to two counts of first-degree disseminating indecent material to minors as a sexually motivated felony and one misdemeanor count of endangering the welfare of a child.

Background Information

McCaffery taught social studies and coached junior varsity boys soccer at Riverhead High School on Long Island’s East End. His case began with a tip rather than a complaint from his school: on November 4, 2024, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children alerted the New York State Police Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force that an individual had shared child sexual abuse material on Kik. A digital forensic analysis later tied the account to McCaffery and identified him through his employment at the school, prosecutors said. He was convicted in a separate case in Bergen County, New Jersey, where he received a five-year sentence that began February 11, 2026.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Convicted and sentenced. McCaffery admitted, by guilty plea, to posing as a teenage boy on Snapchat under the handle “c_chambers77,” “quick adding” hundreds of accounts to reach underage girls, sending them images of his exposed genitals and requesting nude photos in return, and to sharing child sexual abuse material on Kik. He pleaded guilty on September 21, 2026, to two class-D felonies and a misdemeanor and was sentenced October 21, 2026, to three years in prison plus five years of post-release supervision, concurrent with the five-year New Jersey sentence he began serving in February. The admissions are his own, entered in court; the underlying facts below are drawn from prosecutors’ accounts.

State Police investigators executed a search warrant at McCaffery’s Ridge home on January 17, 2025, and seized several electronic devices, after the November NCMEC tip about Kik. The forensic examination found that between December 2024 and January 2025, McCaffery had been posing as a teenage boy and messaging multiple underage girls on Snapchat under the name “c_chambers77.” Prosecutors said he “quick added” hundreds of random accounts to reach female children, sent images of his exposed genitals, and requested nude images from the minors. The same analysis showed he had attempted to view and purchase additional sexual abuse images and videos, and had shared at least one such video with another Kik user.

The arrest sequence ran across two states: prosecutors say investigators determined during the forensic review that McCaffery worked at Riverhead High School, and he resigned from his teaching position on February 5, 2025 — days around his arrest in New Jersey on similar charges that month, per Newsday’s reporting. Three months after the New Jersey arrest, on May 12, 2025, New York State Police arrested him on Long Island. The New York Post reported he was arraigned in Central Islip in a photo dated to that arrest.

On September 21, 2026, McCaffery pleaded guilty before Acting Supreme Court Justice Karen M. Wilutis to two counts of Disseminating Indecent Material to Minors in the First Degree as a Sexually Motivated Felony — class D felonies — and one count of Endangering the Welfare of a Child, a class A misdemeanor, in what Newsday described as a plea bargain. He had already pleaded guilty in Bergen County, New Jersey. At sentencing in Riverhead on October 21, 2026, he appeared in a green Suffolk County Correctional Facility jumpsuit; he and his attorney, Elena Fast of Manhattan, declined to address the court, and the victims were not present and made no statement.

Public Reaction and Consequences

District Attorney Ray Tierney, whose office prosecuted the case, said: “Adults have a responsibility to protect children, not expose them to sexually explicit material,” calling McCaffery’s conduct “deeply disturbing and wholly unacceptable” and saying the sentence “holds the defendant accountable for conduct that has no place in our community.” Justice Wilutis, while honoring the agreed-upon sentence, told McCaffery, “You’ve been given a gift, Mr. McCaffery — I hope you realize that” — and said she felt the three years was, “quite frankly, not enough,” adding: “You were in a position of trust as a teacher, akin to a guardian of children or a surrogate parent.” The New York Post, Newsday and News 12 Long Island all covered Wednesday’s sentencing, and the New York Post pushed the story to its followers on X.

The case also landed on a school community with history: the New York Post noted that in 2019, Riverhead High School Principal Charles Regan was accused in a $10 million lawsuit of sending thousands of sexually explicit texts to an 18-year-old student and then grabbing and kissing her in his office — an allegation, not an adjudicated claim.

Current Status

McCaffery, 38, is in state custody serving a three-year New York prison sentence imposed October 21, 2026, to be followed by five years of post-release supervision; the term runs concurrently with the five-year Bergen County, New Jersey, sentence he began February 11, 2026, so it is not expected to add time behind bars. His guilty pleas in both states are convictions, not mere allegations. He has not worked at Riverhead High School since his February 5, 2025 resignation.

Impact on Their Career/Life

A decade-plus teaching career ended with a resignation the same month as his first arrest, and his name now sits on conviction records in two states. The sentencing adds five years of post-release supervision on top of concurrent prison terms — but the judge’s own words marked the gap between the outcome and the conduct, calling the agreed sentence “not enough” for a man who stood in a guardian’s role. For Riverhead, it is the second high-ranking educator named in a student-exploitation controversy in seven years, after the 2019 Regan lawsuit.

Sources

Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, “Former Riverhead High School Teacher and Coach Sentenced to Prison for Disseminating Indecent Material to Minors,” October 21, 2026 — source
New York Post, “Ex-Long Island teacher and coach who posed as teen on Snapchat to get nudes sentenced to 3 years in prison,” October 21, 2026 — source
Newsday, “Ex-Riverhead teacher Ryan McCaffery sentenced to 3 years for soliciting nude images from underage girls,” October 21, 2026 — source
News 12 Long Island, “Ex-Riverhead teacher who posed as teen to solicit nude images from underage girls sentenced to 3 years in prison,” October 21, 2026 — source
@nypost on X, trigger post for the sentencing, October 21, 2026 — source