A 30-year-old Eagle Pass man has pleaded guilty in Del Rio federal court to producing child sexual abuse material. Gerardo “Jerry” Sanchez Jr. admitted to producing the material.
A press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas announced Sanchez’s guilty plea. The plea was also announced in a U.S. Attorney WDTX
post.
Court documents indicate Sanchez solicited sexually explicit media from high school-aged females across multiple social media platforms, including Snapchat, in exchange for payments.
Sentencing Still to Come
Sanchez now faces sentencing under 18 U.S.C. § 2251, which carries a mandatory minimum of 15 years, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. No sentencing date has been reported.
The GEO Group provides housing, management, and supervision at the 661-bed Eagle Pass Detention Facility.
Part of a Broader Federal Push
The case was prosecuted under Project Safe Childhood, a Department of Justice initiative launched in May 2006 to coordinate federal, state, and local law enforcement against internet-based child sexual exploitation, as described by the U.S. Department of Justice. The program is spearheaded regionally by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices across the country.
Sanchez’s plea follows a string of similar prosecutions out of Del Rio federal court. In June, prosecutors secured a 30-year sentence for another Eagle Pass man, 21-year-old Reginaldo Gonzalez Jr., after local police identified him placing a hidden recording device in a store dressing room to produce child sexual abuse material.
Just days before the Sanchez plea, prosecutors in Del Rio secured a guilty plea from Honduran national Herman Daniel Diaz-Aguilera on a possession of child pornography charge that carries up to 20 years in federal prison, a case Hoodline reported earlier this month. Taken together, the cases show a sustained push by federal authorities across Maverick and Val Verde counties to pursue online child exploitation prosecutions under Project Safe Childhood.
