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A 23-year-old man accused in an online sextortion scheme in the San Fernando Valley is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to distributing explicit images of minors, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said Tuesday. Confirmed.
Alejandro Garcia Aranda, of Sylmar, was charged with three federal counts of promoting and distributing more than 600 images and videos containing child pornography through the Instagram handle “valleyhoezzz818,” which he created around May 2020. He was charged and arrested in July.
Authorities say the suspect used the image to humiliate the female student and then blackmailed the high school victim by threatening to post more dangerous content if she did not send in the photo.
According to the plea agreement, Aranda admitted to selling the images. Investigators discovered Aranda received payments via Cash App, PayPal, Venmo and Zelle from online customers who purchased explicit content. According to court documents, Aranda sent sexually explicit zip files stored on New Zealand-based file hosting service MEGA to paying customers via Instagram direct messages.
He admitted that he knew the content contained “sexually explicit acts involving minors.” Some of the content featured victims under the age of 12 and was depicted in a “sadistic or masochistic” setting.
Aranda’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for February 18, 2025, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office confirmed. He faces a possible sentence of five to 20 years in federal prison.
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