Monico Erich Gastelo, 43, of Fresno, California, United States is a former resident of Pinedale, California. In January 2019, he created a social media account where he claimed to be a boy aged 18 and used the account to communicate with at least one minor and request sexually explicit content from them.
Monico Gastelo
Between January 1, 2020, and March 23, 2020, Gastelo used Snapcat, Telegram and Wickr to communicate with other individuals who were sexually attracted to children and to send and receive child sexual abuse material (CSAM). He had more than 1,500 suspected CSAM images and videos, according to forensic review of his phones.
In May 2020, a minor victim reported to law enforcement that he had been sexually exploited online and that an individual had added him on Snapchat. The individual was identified to be Gastelo, who sent over a dozen images of his penis to the minor victim and asked the minor victim to send back CSAM of himself.
In July 2024, Gastelo turned 43. On May 28, 2025, he pleaded guilty to one count each of distribution and receipt of child pornography and sexual exploitation of children.
On September 8, 2025, Gastelo will be sentenced. He faces a mandatory minimum penalty of five years in prison up to 20 years in prison on the distribution and receipt count and a mandatory minimum penalty of 15 years in prison up to 30 years in prison on the sexual exploitation count.
The case was investigated by the Fresno County Police Department and the Department of Homeland Security. It is being prosecuted by trial attorney McKenzie Hightower of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) of the U.S. Department of Justice and assistant U.S. attorney David Gappa for the Eastern District of California.
The CEOS was created in 1987. Its mission has been to enforced federal criminal statutes relating to the exploitation of children and obscenity to protect the welfare of children and communities in the U.S.
CONAN Daily 