Ex-Texas Deputy Who Exploited Worcester County Girls Get 18 Years

WORCESTER, MA — A former sheriff's deputy from Texas who pleaded guilty to sexually exploiting two young Massachusetts girls over the internet was sentenced to prison on Tuesday.

Pasquale Salas, 26, a former Matagorda County Sheriff's Department deputy, pleaded guilty on May 14 to charges of sexual exploitation of a minor and cyberstalking. Salas was sentenced to about 18 years in prison, according to the U.S. Attorney in Boston — although federal prosecutors had asked a judge to send Salas to prison for about 25 years.

Salas met his first victim, a 12-year-old from Worcester County, in 2014 through the online game Minecraft. He convinced the girl to send him sexually explicit images, prosecutors said. She tried to cut ties with Salas in 2016, which is when he threatened to publish her nude photos. He also tracked her location using Snapchat, and threatened to rape the girl's younger sister, according to prosecutors.

"He also threatened to publish her nude images if she changed her passwords for her social media accounts or if she did not keep the location feature activated on her Snapchat account," a sentencing memo said. "The defendant required Victim 1 to call him or answer his calls to her cell phone, multiple times a day, at all hours of the day and night."

At the same time, Salas was sexually exploiting another 12-year-old Worcester County girl he met through Minecraft, prosecutors said. He told her he was watching her in her room and while she traveled to school, according to a sentencing memo.

Ahead of his sentencing, multiple members of Salas' family wrote to the judge requesting leniency. Salas' mother, Tanya, a sheriff's deputy in Texas, said her son developed a drinking problem after witnessing violence while working as a police officer. That alcohol abuse "played a role in his actions that has caused him to be where he is today," her letter said.

On top of the 220-month sentence, Salas will be on supervised released for five years after he leaves prison, and will have to register as a sex offender.