In San Antonio today, 38-year-old Armando Robledo Gonzales
was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for production of child
pornography, announced U.S. Attorney John F. Bash, FBI Special Agent in Charge
Christopher Combs, San Antonio Division, and Bexar County Sheriff Javier
Salazar.
In addition to the prison term, Senior U.S. District Judge
David A. Ezra ordered that Gonzales be placed under supervised release for a
period of ten years after completing his prison term.
On December 11, 2018, Gonzales pleaded guilty to the
production charge. By pleading guilty,
Gonzales admitted that in May 2017, he used the Internet to persuade a 13 year
old to produce and send him visual images and videos of the minor engaging in
sexually explicit conduct.
“We have a crisis of child sex abuse in this country and we
must use every tool available to both federal and state law enforcement to
address it. The efforts of the San Antonio Child Exploitation Task Force and my
office demonstrate how we can effectively combine resources to apprehend and
prosecute predators like Armando Gonzales,” stated U.S. Attorney Bash.
“Everyday, across the world, and in our community children
are suffering in silence as we go about our daily activities,” said FBI SAC
Combs. “The San Antonio Child Exploitation Task Force will relentlessly pursue
every lead to rescue children who are being victimized, and bring their
perpetrators to justice. We would
encourage members of the public to help us protect children, who are among the
most vulnerable in our community.”
The FBI San Antonio’s Child Exploitation Human Trafficking
Task Force investigated this case. Assistant
U.S. Attorney Tracy Thompson prosecuted this case on behalf of the Government.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a
nationwide initiative to combat the epidemic of child sexual exploitation and
abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by 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 exploit children via the Internet, as well as to
identify and rescue victims. For more
information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit
www.projectsafechildhood.gov.
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