El Paso Boys and Girls Club ex-director sentenced to more than 6 years in federal prison for possessing child pornography
Local man pleaded to possessing child pornography, conviction makes him amenable to deportation
EL PASO, Texas - A former local Boys and Girls Club director was sentenced to 80 months in federal prison on Wednesday, following a child pornography investigation by special agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
Carlos Vasquez, 45, pleaded guilty last fall to possessing material involving the sexual exploitation of minors. ICE HSI special agents assigned to the Cyber Crimes Group arrested him July 16, 2010.
On March 11, 2009, ICE HSI special agents executed a search warrant at a location where Vasquez resided and seized his laptop and desktop computers. A subsequent forensic analysis of the hard drives from the computers revealed about 540 images and 95 videos depicting child pornography.
Vasquez was director of the Boys and Girls Club of El Paso/Kennedy Branch from 2004 to 2006.
ICE HSI special agents have placed an immigration detainer on Vasquez, which means that once he completes his prison sentence he will be turned over to ICE custody. At that time, he will be placed in deportation proceedings. An immigration judge will ultimately decide whether Vasquez is eligible to remain in the country.
"Homeland Security Investigations uses its ample authority to identify, investigate, prosecute and if eligible, deport, those who prey upon the most innocent of victims," said Manuel Oyola-Torres, special agent in charge of ICE HSI in El Paso. "Our local Cyber Crimes Group is dedicated full time to targeting violators involved in producing, distributing and possessing child pornography."
This case was investigated under Operation Predator, an ICE initiative to protect children from sexual predators, including those who travel overseas for sex with minors, Internet child pornographers, criminal alien sex offenders, and child sex traffickers.
ICE encourages the public to report suspected child predators by calling at 1-866-DHS-2ICE. For more information, visit www.ice.gov.
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