LA County man sentenced to prison for selling child pornography on Instagram

A federal judge sentenced a Los Angeles County man to 10 years in prison on Tuesday after he sold sexually explicit images of high school girls on Instagram. 

Alejandro Garcia Aranda, 23, pleaded guilty to one count of distribution of child pornography last year. In addition to the 10-year prison sentence, Garcia Aranda must pay $45,000 to 15 victims. 

Garcia Aranda used his Instagram page for the self-proclaimed goal of targeting girls who attended schools in the San Fernando Valley between April and May of 2020, according to the Department of Justice. Investigators said he used various online payment platforms such as Cash App, PayPal, Venmo and Zelle to receive the money before sending a download link to the child sexual abuse material. 

When victims found out about Garcia Aranda's operation, they asked that he stop and remove it. Instead of deleting the content, he tried to get more sexually explicit content, even threatening to post more images of them. 

Garcia Aranda said he knew he was distributing child sexual abuse material to investigators. He also said he had more than 600 images of the graphic content. 

During the sentencing hearing, the presiding judge described Garcia Aranda's actions as cruel," "callous," and "monstrous."