July 16, 2024 - FRESNO, Calif. — Nicolas Adan Guereca, 25, of Fresno was sentenced on Monday by U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Thurston to 25 years in prison for sexual exploitation of a minor and receipt of child pornography, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced.  The court also ordered Guereca to pay a total of $60,200 in financial assessments and scheduled a hearing on restitution for September 16, 2024.

The prison sentence will be followed by a lifetime term of supervised release during which time his access to minors, computers, and the internet will be restricted. Guereca was also ordered to register as a sex offender.

According to court documents, on approximately July 30, 2019, Guereca used a cellphone and an Instagram account with username jayriggs_14 to locate and communicate with a minor victim. During a series of messages, Guereca coerced the victim to engage in sexually explicit conduct and create visual depictions of that conduct for the purpose of transmitting them to Guereca. Investigators later learned that Guereca had used multiple phones and Yahoo, Snapchat, and Instagram accounts to communicate with minor females. Guereca received images of minors, some as young as 12 years of age, engaged in sexually explicit conduct from approximately June 2019 through July 2020.

This case is a product of an investigation by the Central California Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, specifically Homeland Security Investigations, the Clovis and Fresno Police Departments, and the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney David L. Gappa prosecuted the case.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice 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 exploit children via the internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit Justice.gov/PSC.
Source: DOJ Release