An Edinburg man, initially from Mexico, has been slapped with a decade-long prison sentence after using Snapchat to prey on a minor, federal authorities declared. Santos Emilio Marcial-Castro, a 31-year-old, will also endure five years of supervised release and sex offender registration after finishing his 120-month stint behind bars, U.S. District Judge Drew B. Tipton decreed, as per an announcement by U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani obtained by justice.gov.
In an uncovered string of messages with the underage girl stretching back to May 2021, Marcial-Castro fully knew his victim was beneath the age of consent, laying bare the youth's confession of an upcoming 14th birthday even as the exchanges grew illicit and sexually charged, it appears he couldn't stop himself from continually sending sexually explicit messages and barbarously coaxing nudes from the teen, who he also told of his perverse interest in minors. Authorities say they chanced upon the disturbing conversations in April 2023, a culmination of two years of tracking and investigation by Homeland Security Investigations – Rio Grande Valley Child Exploitation Investigations Task Force.
Marcial-Castro's liberty is now curtailed as he awaits the cold transfer to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons establishment. Assistant U.S. Attorney M. Alexis Garcia laid the prosecution's case as part of Project Safe Childhood, a sweeping Department of Justice initiative battling the epidemic of child sexual exploitation, as evidenced on the DOJ’s PSC page and promoted with internet safety education resources.
