Deputy sheriff pleads guilty to sexual exploitation of young Massachusetts girl

BOSTON – A law enforcement officer from Texas pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court in Worcester to sexual exploitation of a minor and cyberstalking charges.

Pasquale T. Salas, 26, a/k/a Gino, a former deputy sheriff with the Matagorda County Sheriff’s Office, pleaded guilty to one count of sexual exploitation of a minor and one count of cyberstalking. U.S. District Court Judge Timothy S. Hillman scheduled sentencing for Sept. 3, 2020.

Salas met the victim through an online video game website in 2014, when the minor was 12 years old. Salas and the girl communicated on a private chat room and then moved those communications to various other platforms, including text messaging, Skype and Snapchat. Salas repeatedly solicited the minor to transmit sexually explicit images and videos of herself.

Beginning as early as 2016, Salas intimidated the victim into maintaining contact with him and sending additional sexually explicit material by threatening that he would send the minor’s sexually explicit images and videos to her family and her friends. In May 2019, when the victim attempted to terminate contact with Salas, he repeatedly sent threatening communications to the victim, using web-based applications to disguise the source of the communications.

At the time of his arrest, Salas’ smartphone was seized by investigators and found to contain at least one video, sent via social media, of the minor performing sexually explicit acts that Salas had coerced her to perform.

Salas admitted to contacting a second Massachusetts minor through the same website. From the time she was 12 until the time she was 16, he coerced her into remaining in contact with him and solicited sexually explicit images from her. Salas forced her to disclose her social media credentials so that he could track her activities and view her photographs. Salas sent pictures of himself inside a police car and with a gun and told the second victim that he had law enforcement friends in Massachusetts who would follow her and that no one would believe her if she reported what he had done. Salas was in contact with her until the time of his arrest.

The charge of sexual exploitation of a minor provides for mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years and up to 30 in prison, a minimum of five years and up to life of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000. The charge of cyberstalking provides for a sentence of up to five years in prison, up to three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based on the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.