Central District of California | Central Coast man sentenced to more than 11 years in federal prison for receiving child pornography, weeks after release from state prison

LOS ANGELES – A Santa Barbara County man was sentenced today to 135 months in federal prison for receiving thousands of videos containing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) within a month of his parole from California State Prison after being convicted of crimes involving the sexual exploitation of children online.

Giovanni Gonzalez, 34, of Carpinteria, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner, who also ordered him to pay $24,000 in restitution.

Gonzalez pleaded guilty on February 5 to receiving child pornography.

“Within days of his release from state prison for despicable acts committed against children, this defendant returned to his deplorable behavior, obtaining thousands of videos depicting the sexual exploitation of children,” said U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada. “Protecting our children is a core mission of my office, and we will continue to use all available resources to prosecute those who participate in this vicious marketplace that traffics in child abuse.”

“Child sexual exploitation is unacceptable and will not be tolerated in our society,” said Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office. “This case underscores the FBI’s commitment to investigating all offenders who harm our children, and we will ensure that these individuals no longer pose a threat to our communities.”

According to his plea agreement, Gonzalez was released from California State Prison on December 1, 2022, after serving more than 17 years in prison. He posed online as a teenage girl and coerced at least eight underage female victims into performing sexual acts and sending him the images. He also possessed and shared child sexual abuse material online.

Later that month, Gonzalez began receiving child sexual abuse messages from sources such as WhatsApp, a software application on his mobile phone.

On December 28, 2022, Gonzalez knowingly received numerous files containing CSAM from a single source. After receiving this material on WhatsApp, Gonzalez saved them to his mobile phone’s memory card.

On January 7, 2023, Gonzalez turned his cell phone over to his probation officer, in accordance with his search conditions. Upon inspection, police found approximately 2,684 videos on Gonzalez’s phone depicting CSAM, several of which depicted prepubescent minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct or sexual exploitation of an infant or toddler.

The FBI and the Santa Maria Police Department investigated the case. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office assisted.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeremy K. Beecher of the International Narcotics, Money Laundering and Racketeering Unit prosecuted the case.