April 24, 2024 - SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Cameron Andrew Garcia, 30, of Dallas, Texas, was sentenced on Tuesday to 14 years in prison, 10 years of supervised release, and $5,000 in victim restitution for two counts of receipt of visual depictions of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced.

According to court documents, in 2014-2015, Garcia formed an online relationship with a minor victim from Butte County and instructed the minor victim to send him sexually explicit photos and videos, which the victim did. In 2020, Garcia sent Instagram messages to the same victim, threatening to post sexually explicit images and videos of the victim to public websites unless the victim produced new sexually explicit images and videos for him and sent him money. Garcia also used the Instagram app and the internet in 2020 to communicate with a second minor victim whom he knew was under the age of sixteen and solicited and received multiple videos of that victim engaged in sexually explicit conduct. When this second minor victim was not forthcoming with an additional picture, Garcia again resorted to extortion by threatening to post explicit content of the victim publicly.

This case was the product of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Christina McCall prosecuted the case.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute those who exploit children via the internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit Justice.gov/PSC.
Source: DOJ Release