Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
Spokane, Washington – First Assistant United States Attorney Pete Serrano announced on October 15, 2025, that former Riverside School District employee Dallas Michael Shuler who formerly pled guilty to 12 felony counts pertaining to the online exploitation of children was sentenced on March 25, 2026, to 360 months (30 years) of imprisonment followed by a lifetime term of supervised release.As indicated in court pleadings and hearings, in May of 2024, the FBI Spokane Office was contacted due to a child sexual abuse material video which had been posted online. When questioned about the video, Mr. Shuler indicated he had been in contact with the minors depicted in the video and had requested they produce the sexually explicit material. Further investigation into Mr. Shuler’s electronic devices and online accounts showed Mr. Shuler had engaged in hands-on sexual abuse of at least three minor children and had filmed the abuse. He also engaged in online sexual exploitation of children with dozens of additional victims, many of whom were contacted and victimized through Snapchat. The charges pled to encompass sexual exploitation against 37 different minor children.At the sentencing hearing, AUSA Rebecca Perez spoke to the incredible breach of trust at the core of Shuler’s crimes due to his position as an educator and a coach. Throughout his hundreds of online contacts with minors, Shuler consistently sought out children from the Riverside School District, indicating his ultimate goal of physical sexual contact with children. Mr. Shuler usually posed as a young teenage girl to attempt to entice his target audience of young teenage boys On three separate occasions, Mr. Shuler filmed himself engaging in sexual contact with children and subsequently distributed those images and videos of child sexual abuse material. AUSA Perez further explained that Mr. Shuler’s actions were not a momentary lapse in judgment; rather, they were a consistent pattern which went on for years and was only stopped by the actions of the FBI and Spokane County Sheriff’s DepartmentDuring one online conversation with another online child predator, Mr. Shuler bragged about how good he was at committing these crimes. He noted “I have tons of stuff like that,” in referring to sexually exploitative material. He went on to note, “I baited the boys and did it myself” and “I got those boys to do stuff haha,” going on to brag that as a result he had “content you won’t find anywhere else.”The impact of Shuler’s crimes was best captured by victims and parents who provided impact statements, two of whom spoke at the sentencing hearing. They expressed their profound sense of anger, sadness, and betrayal due to Shuler’s conduct. All expressed that Shuler’s crimes had dramatically altered their lives and their sense of security in their community.Shuler declined to speak at sentencing. There has been and continues to be no expression of remorse from Mr. Shuler.First Assistant United States Attorney Pete Serrano said, “Shuler is one of the most prolific child predators to be sentenced in this district. No others compare. He was relentless in his pursuit of child victims. The long sentence was merited by the offenses committed on vulnerable children in this case.”“As a school district employee, Mr. Shuler was entrusted with the children of this community, whom he held a responsibility to safeguard and guide as a role model,” said W. Mike Herrington, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Seattle field office. “It was a horrifying betrayal of that trust to abuse his access to children by exploiting them both in person and online, as Mr. Shuler did again and again, causing harm to the children of his community at a truly shocking scope and scale. Tragically, no prosecution can undo what these children suffered or fully erase its record from the Internet. Still, our case team, partner law enforcement agencies, and prosecutors hope this sentence sends a strong message to a predator who would not stop hurting children, and to anyone elsetempted to follow in his footsteps.”This case is being brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the U.S. Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals, who sexually exploit children, as well as to identify and rescue victims.This case is being investigated by the FBI, in cooperation with the United States Secret Service, the Spokane County Sheriff’s Department, and the Spokane County Prosecutor’s Office. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Rebecca R. Perez.