On Tuesday, Ruben Oswaldo Yeverino Rosales, 27, of Mexico, was sentenced to 413 months in prison, followed by lifetime supervised release, after previously pleading guilty for producing child pornography and cyberstalking, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona announced in a press release.
The investigation into Rosales revealed that he used social media from 2015 until the time of his arrest to exploit more than 100 females, mostly minors – some as young as 12 years of age – according to the press release. Homeland Security Investigations was able to identify more than 80 of these victims throughout the United States and in multiple other countries.
Rosales was arrested in Mexico in 2019 and was extradited to the District of Arizona in May 2020.
Rosales, using an online account in Mexico, coerced a 14-year-old girl in Arizona to take over 600 pornographic images of herself. He then blackmailed the minor into producing additional images by threatening to send, and by actually sending, the images to her family and schoolmates, according to the Department of Justice. Rosales also used the internet to coerce an 18-year-old high school senior in Arizona into taking nude pictures of herself and sending them to him. He later threatened to create a pornographic website to post the images if she did not continue to send him pictures.
The Department of Justice notes that Tuesday’s sentencing took into account similar indictments in five other districts, including the Central District of California, the District of South Carolina, the Eastern District of North Carolina, the Eastern District of Missouri, and Northern District of Oklahoma. However, as part of Rosales’ plea agreement, these indictments will be dismissed.
Rosales was sentenced by United States District Judge Steven P. Logan. Homeland Security Investigations and the Goodyear Police Department conducted the investigation while Assistant U.S. Attorneys Gayle Helart and Sheila Phillips handled the prosecution.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network.
Photo “Prison” by Tim (Timothy) Pearce. CC BY 2.0.
