May 18, 2015

Tucson Man Sentenced to 30 Years for Child Pornography Offenses

TUCSON, AZ—Today, Tucson resident Vittorio Francesco Castillo-Gonzalez, 27, was sentenced by Chief U.S. District Judge Raner C. Collins to 30 years’ incarceration for his part in two federal child pornography cases. In the first case, which arose in Arizona, the defendant was charged with distribution, receipt, and possession of child pornography after a 2009 investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) revealed Gonzalez’s large-scale trading and distribution of graphic and sadistic child pornography. In the second case, which arose from an investigation by Homeland Security Investigations Agents out of Louisiana, the defendant was charged with conspiracy to produce child pornography for his part in producing a series of videos depicting a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct in 2012 and 2013. The defendant entered guilty pleas in both cases on Nov. 12, 2015, after the Louisiana matter was transferred to the District of Arizona. Gonzalez’s term of imprisonment will be followed by lifetime supervised release with stringent sex offender conditions and the requirement that he register as a sex offender.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood combines 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 of child sexual abuse. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

The investigations in these cases were conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Tucson, Ariz., Birmingham, Ala., and Albany, N.Y., and Homeland Security Investigations in Louisiana, Arizona, and California, as well as by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in Louisiana. The prosecutions were handled by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Carin C. Duryee, District of Arizona, Tucson, and Brian M. Klebba, Eastern District of Louisiana.