State of Iowa, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Dylan Frank Mills, Defendant–Appellant. (2026)

Dylan Mills challenges his conviction for telephone dissemination of obscene material to a minor. He argues the child's testimony that she received an image of his penis was not reliable enough to prove the offense. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the district court's verdict, we find the conviction was supported by sufficient evidence.

I. Facts and Prior Proceedings

In 2022, nine-year-old A.H. had a conversation on Snapchat ¹ with seventeen-year-old Dylan Mills. A.H. knew Mills through family connections. Mills worked at the Hy-Vee grocery store in Corydon. On the evening of April 30, A.H. went into the store to buy spaghetti sauce for her mother. Mills saw A.H., and they talked at the front of the store. Mills then helped A.H. look for the spaghetti sauce. After finding the sauce, A.H. grabbed gum from a checkout line and went to Mills's cash register. Because her hands were full, A.H. set her phone on the counter. Mills “grabbed [it]” and “put his Snapchat in.” A.H. recalled that he told her what he was doing, but she did not respond.

A.H.’s phone needed wi-fi to receive messages. A.H. did not have wi-fi access at home but did at her babysitter's house where she went before school. On the morning of April 1, while at her babysitter's house, A.H. began communicating with Mills on Snapchat.

The conversation started off innocent enough but escalated. After a short exchange in which Mills told A.H. he was seventeen and asked A.H. her age, Mills asked if she liked secrets. He then asked if she wanted to keep a secret between them. Mills soon entered sexual territory, probing whether A.H. ever “touched [herself ] for fun.” He also asked what she was wearing and encouraged her to pull down her pants. In a follow-up message, Mills asked if her pants were down. A.H.’s response to that question was deleted from the chat messages.

The chat conversation shows that following the deleted message, Mills asked, “Do you want to do it later after school,” to which A.H. responded, “Nooooooooooo.” A.H. asked Mills to “[d]elet[e] them okay all of them because my mom looks [through] my phone.” Mills's initial reply was “[o]kay,” but he followed it with a second message saying: “If we were alone would you like to[?]” A.H.’s last message to Mills was “No.” Mills sent A.H. five more messages that day, all of which went unanswered.

After arriving at school on April 1, A.H. visited her former kindergarten teacher's classroom. A.H. had maintained a close relationship with the teacher and would often stop by her classroom in the mornings. That morning, the teacher noticed A.H. was more distant. The teacher recalled, “She was uneasy and just seemed uncomfortable. Generally, she was pretty chipper, pretty upbeat and happy, and that morning as she came in, she did not seem—she didn't have a presence that she generally did in the mornings.”

The teacher asked A.H. if she was okay. A.H. asked the teacher if they could talk. The teacher agreed, and they moved to a more private area in her classroom. A.H. disclosed that “she had received some messages on her phone that she was uncomfortable with.” The teacher recalled A.H. saying “that she had received from [Mills] a picture of himself, and at the time she pointed down to where her lower private parts would be.” A.H. later testified that Mills had sent her a photo of his penis.

To ensure A.H.’s safety, the teacher let her know that school officials would address the situation. The teacher also asked A.H. to leave her phone in her backpack and go to class. After another staff member arrived to supervise her classroom, the teacher met with school officials and Chief Deputy Sheriff Tyler Moore of the Wayne County Sheriff's Office.

Deputy Moore soon launched an investigation, first gathering security footage from the Hy-Vee where Mills worked. The footage showed Mills interacting with A.H. the night of March 31. Moore also took A.H.’s phone. He could see her Snapchat conversation with Mills. For a more complete view of the conversation, he sent a search warrant to Snapchat for its records. Information about the “snaps” shared between Mills and A.H. was missing from the records Snapchat provided to Deputy Moore.

The State charged Mills with telephone dissemination of obscene material to a minor in violation of Iowa Code section 728.15(1)(b) (2022) and sexual exploitation of a minor in violation of Iowa Code section 728.12. Mills waived his right to a jury trial. The district court acquitted him on the exploitation charge but convicted him on the telephone dissemination charge. He appeals that conviction.

II. Scope and Standard of Review

We review “challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence for the correction of legal error.” State v. Lacey, 968 N.W.2d 792, 800 (Iowa 2021). Our review is the same for a bench trial as a jury trial. State v. Myers, 924 N.W.2d 823, 826 (Iowa 2019). “If the verdict is supported by substantial evidence, we will affirm.” Id. (citation omitted).

In a bench trial, “[t]he court's findings of fact have the effect of a special verdict—binding on appeal if supported by substantial evidence.” State v. Wilde, 987 N.W.2d 486, 494 (Iowa Ct. App. 2022). In sufficiency challenges, “we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the State.” State v. Fordyce, 940 N.W.2d 419, 425 (Iowa 2020). Because trial courts have a “superior vantage point to make credibility determinations,” we defer to those findings. Neimann v. Butterfield, 551 N.W.2d 652, 654–55 (Iowa Ct. App. 1996).

III. Analysis

To convict Mills of telephone dissemination of obscene material to a minor, the State had to prove that Mills “knowingly disseminate[d] obscene material by the use of telephones or telephone facilities to a minor.” Iowa Code § 728.15(1)(b). “Obscene material” includes any material that depicts genitals that the “average person ․ would find appeals to the prurient interest and is patently offensive” while lacking other value or merit. Id. § 728.1(5); see also State v. Soderberg, No. A13-1246, 2014 WL 2565561, at *3 (Minn. Ct. App. June 9, 2014) (concluding defendant asking for a “dick pic” supported finding he attempted to obtain obscene photograph).

Mills contends the State failed to offer substantial evidence that he knowingly disseminated obscene material to A.H. because it could not produce the photograph of his penis. No one other than A.H. saw the photo. Mills argues that if he sent the explicit image, the Snapchat conversation would show that it was deleted. But in Deputy Moore's experience, that is not always the case.

Moore testified that he has investigated “more than twenty, less than fifty” cases involving Snapchat. And the records he receives from Snapchat do not always contain information on all photos sent. Moore explained:

So I have had cases and instances where I'm able to show that a reported Snapchat picture was sent because I physically have it, whether that be from a physical phone or a screenshot or whatever, and then when we go to corroborate that with Snapchat records, that isn't shown in the records.

Thus, it is not fatal to the State's case that the Snapchat conversation did not reveal a deleted photo. As Deputy Moore testified, Snapchat is popular “because of its advertised secrecy.” And as the State points out, “the draw of Snapchat is that photos sent as ‘snaps’ disappear․ In other words, one would expect that the photo of a penis sent to the victim on Snapchat would disappear.”

To convict Mills, the State did not need to offer the obscene material into evidence. A victim's “testimony, standing alone, is sufficient to support [a defendant's] conviction.” State v. Trane, 934 N.W.2d 447, 455 (Iowa 2019). Here, A.H. testified that Mills sent her a photograph of his penis.

Mills argues this testimony was insufficient evidence to convict him of the telephone dissemination count because the judge found A.H.’s testimony too unreliable to convict him of sexual exploitation. True, the district court found A.H.’s testimony on the other count to be inconsistent, but the court specifically found A.H.’s testimony related to the photo to be credible.

Within hours of the event, A.H. reported what had occurred to her trusted former kindergarten teacher. Her narrative related to the photograph has not varied from this initial report. That he sent A.H. a picture of his penis is totally consistent with the messages exchanged on April 1, 2022, between A.H. and Mills. That there is no documentary proof of the photograph is entirely consistent with the nature of the Snapchat app. I find the evidence does establish by proof beyond a reasonable doubt Mills knowingly disseminated obscene material to A.H. using his telephone.

Further, while A.H.’s report did not need to be corroborated, her testimony did not stand alone. The State offered a transcript of the messages that Deputy Moore read on A.H.’s phone, as well as Snapchat records. Moore described the messages as “sexual in nature.” Indeed, it is fair to infer from Mills's asking a nine-year-old “[h]ave u ever touched yourself for fun” and “want to learn” that he was “aware of the character of the matter” he was discussing with A.H. and sent her an obscene photograph. See Iowa Code § 728.1(2) (defining “knowingly”).

Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the district court's verdict, substantial evidence supports Mills's conviction for telephone dissemination of obscene material to a minor.

AFFIRMED.

FOOTNOTES

1.   “Snapchat is a social media application that allows individuals to send pictures, videos, and messages (colloquially known as ‘Snaps’) to other individuals with a Snapchat username.” State v. Davis, 975 N.W.2d 1, 5 n.1 (Iowa 2022).

Opinion by Tabor, C.J.