Bruce Anthony Garcia, Child Exploitation, California 2023

Sacramento Man Sentenced to 19 Years for Child Exploitation

In a disturbing case of child exploitation, 43-year-old Bruce Anthony Garcia of Sacramento has been sentenced to 19 years and seven months in prison for the attempted sexual exploitation of a minor under his care. The sentencing took place on an unspecified date.

According to court documents, between August 2, 2017, and September 1, 2019, Garcia took hidden video recordings of the victim. He recorded the victim in various stages of undress, using the toilet or shower, or changing in a bedroom or the living room of the apartment they shared. The victim was partially or fully nude in several hundred of these images.

When confronted, Garcia admitted that he specifically intended to take these images and videos, that his intent in creating the images and videos was sexual, and that he generally has a sexual interest in children. Garcia described how he would wait until the victim would be getting ready for bed or to take a shower, and then place a cellphone in the bathroom or bedroom. The phone would be propped up so that it would record the minor, but would either appear to be inconspicuous, as if it were being charged, or be hidden altogether.

Garcia would then connect to this device remotely using a second device such that he could watch the minor live. From the recordings thus created, Garcia would take screenshots, resulting in the images that were eventually found. Further, Garcia would sometimes manipulate these images to focus or zoom in on the victim’s genitals and pubic area. In a text message conversation with another person, Garcia offered to trade pictures of the victim in exchange for other child sexual abuse material.

In addition to the images and videos described above, Garcia was also found to possess approximately 4,266 images and 426 videos of other child sexual abuse material, including images and videos showing the sexual abuse of toddlers. Several of these videos also depicted violence against the victims, including at least one depicting the bondage and torture of a pre-pubescent female child. Garcia’s child sexual abuse collection included 110 series of known victims of child sexual abuse.

This case was the product of an investigation by the Internet Crimes Against Children Unit of the Sacramento Valley Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force and the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Dhruv M. Sharma is prosecuting the case.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the federal government to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute those who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims.

For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc. Click on the “resources” tab for information about internet-safety education.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-edca/pr/sacramento-man-sentenced-over-19-years-prison-attempted-sexual-exploitation-minor