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.Īt 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 repeatedly solicited the minor to transmit sexually explicit images and videos of herself.īeginning 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. 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 met the victim through an online video game website in 2014, when the minor was 12 years old. Bonavolonta, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Boston Division. He is both a danger and a disgrace, and now, thanks to the courage of the victims who came forward in this case, and the hard work of our law enforcement partners, he’s been taken off the street so he can no longer harm anyone else,' said Joseph R. Instead of protecting children, he exploited children for his own sexual gratification. As a deputy sheriff, he betrayed his oath and abused the trust that was placed in him. “Child predators often wear many disturbing disguises in our communities, and Pasquale Salas is no exception. We will always prioritize, and aggressively pursue, cases involving online predators.” This sentence is a warning to others, but it is also intended to stop this defendant, for the long term, from further victimizing children. “He used the internet to gain the trust of vulnerable children and then turned around and exploited their innocence and played on their fears. “The defendant was an online predator disguised in a law enforcement uniform,” said United States Attorney Andrew E. In May 2020, Salas pleaded guilty to one count of sexual exploitation of a minor and one count of cyberstalking. Hillman to 220 months in prison and five years of supervised release. Salas, 26, a/k/a Gino, a former deputy sheriff with the Matagorda County Sheriff’s Office, was sentenced by U.S.

BOSTON – A law enforcement officer from Texas was sentenced today in federal court in Worcester for sexual exploitation of a minor and cyberstalking charges.

Kristin noto