A social media influencer has been sentenced to 14 years in federal prison for concocting a scheme to violently coerce a stranger into giving up a web domain name, the US Department of Justice
announced today.
The influencer, Rossi Lorathio Adams II, went by the name “Polo,” and he ran a series of accounts across Instagram and other platforms known as State Snaps while attending college at Iowa State University. The accounts, which Adams began operating around 2015, typically involved depictions of risky or sexually explicit behavior, often featuring college girls.
According to The Washington Post, one account Adams ran on Instagram had amassed 1.5 million followers.
Adams, however, became increasingly frustrated that he did not own doitforstate.com, a reference to a popular hashtag (“#DoItForState”) on social media the influencer often used in comments and captions to invoke the type of behavior he would later post about to millions of fans online. The domain name carrying Adams’ slogan was in fact owned by a Cedar Rapids individual, Ethan Deyo, with whom Adams had no prior affiliation.
