Modesto man gets 45 years for coercing girls to send explicit images on social media
A Modesto man was sentenced to 45 years in federal prison for coercing minor girls to send him sexually explicit images of themselves.
Daniel Vincent Salazar Jr., 29, was sentenced Monday, March 10, in U.S. District Court in Fresno. He had pleaded guilty in September to five counts of sexual exploitation of a minor.
The Modesto Bee reported earlier that the case began in December 2018, when the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department got a complaint from a 14-year-old girl’s parents and the principal of her school. Court documents said the girl told her teacher that she received lewd messages from an Instagram account, prompting an investigation that led to other victims.
At least two of the four victims listed in the criminal complaint were Stanislaus residents, and one was from San Jose. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the San Jose Police Department assisted the Sheriff’s Department in naming Salazar Jr. as the suspect.
Search warrants on his Instagram and Snapchat accounts led authorities to track down the device and IP addresses he was using, which were either registered to him or to a family member. Investigators said they also identified him by his tattoos, which were visible in several of the explicit images he sent.
A news release Monday said Salazar mainly targeted girls between 12 and 14. He told them that if they did not cooperate, he would send images he already had received to classmates and relatives of the girls, the prosecution said.
When one victim spoke of suicide, the release said, the defendant made statements such as “[T]hat’s on you. Not my fault,” and “[T]he cops can’t do nothing trust me.”
Salazar has been in custody since his arrest in January 2020. After completing his sentence, he will be on supervised release and have limits on access to minors, electronic devices and the Internet. He will have to register as a sex offender.
The investigation also involved the Los Banos Police Department and the state Division of Adult Parole Operations.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, launched in 2006 by the U.S. Department of Justice against sexual exploitation and abuse. More information, including Internet safety tips, is at www.usdoj.gov/psc.
This story was originally published March 10, 2025 at 5:31 PM.
