A 46-year-old Amarillo man who pretended to be a 14-year-old boy in order to obtain pornographic images from a child was sentenced today to 25 years in federal prison, announced U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Leigha Simonton.
Willie Gonzales was indicted in December 2023 and pleaded guilty in April 2024 to production of child pornography. He was sentenced Friday by U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk to 300 months in prison followed by a lifetime of supervised release.
According to plea papers, in the fall of 2022, Homeland Security Investigations and the Texas Department of Public Safety – acting off a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children – conducted a search warrant at Gonzales’ home, where they found an iPhone containing sexually explicit images of a 10-year-old girl.
A forensic examination of the phone revealed that Gonzales persuaded the child to send him photos and videos of herself. At sentencing, the judge noted that Gonzales had posed on Snapchat as a 14-year-old boy in order to entice his victim.
Homeland Security Investigations and the Texas Department of Public Safety conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Josh Frausto prosecuted the case.
