A 21-year-old Grandview man was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison Thursday for encouraging two boys to send him sexually explicit images.
Juan Carlos Sandoval-Guerrero will also be under lifetime court supervision after his release and must pay $53,040 restitution to his victims, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Sandoval-Guerrero pleaded guilty to production and attempted production of child pornography in April. His sentencing hearing was in the federal courthouse in Richland.
He was arrested in February 2020, following an investigation by the regional Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. A woman in Benton County told investigators she was concerned about the relationship her sons, then ages 9 and 11, were having with someone she believed to be an adult over the Xbox gaming system, court documents said.
Investigators say Sandoval-Guerrero had befriended the boys through the Fortnite game and encouraged them to send him sexually explicit pictures and videos of themselves, according to the documents.
Investigators searching Sandoval-Guerrero’s electronic devices found images of the boys on his cellphone, the documents said.
While Sandoval-Guerrero’s friends and family members asked for leniency, U.S. District Judge Salvador Mendoza Jr. said the long-term effects on the victims were an important consideration.
“The effects of the offense are not limited to those instances, those moments with the children,” Mendoza told Sandoval-Guerrero, according to the release. “The brain of a 9-, 11-year-old is just developing. It has severe lifelong impacts — what happens to them at that age. Impacts that you caused. You did it.”
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