'Monstrous' Valley Man Sentenced For Selling Explicit Images Of Local Students

LOS ANGELES, CA — A 23-year-old San Fernando Valley man was sentenced to 10 years in prison Tuesday for selling sexually explicit images of local high school girls on social media, according to the United States Justice Department.

Alejandro Garcia Aranda, of Sylmar, also attempted to sextort young victims, who asked him to remove the photos, according to prosecutors. Along with his 10-year prison sentence, he was ordered to pay $45,000 total restitution to 15 victims.

United States District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld Jr. called Garcia Aranda's crimes “cruel,” “callous,” and “monstrous.”

Garcia Aranda pleaded guilty in November 2024 to one count of distribution of child pornography.

According to prosecutors, in April and May of 2020, Garcia Aranda used the Instagram handle “valleyhoezzz818” with the self-proclaimed goal of “[e]xposing all valley hoes with their @’s” to target local girls who attended schools in the San Fernando Valley.

He used Cash App, PayPal, Venmo, and Zelle, to receive payments from customers and then direct messaged them a link to a zip file containing sexually explicit images of young girls through Instagram, according to prosecutors.

When his victims discovered what Garcia Aranda was doing, they asked him to stop and remove the photos, but he attempted to extract further additional sexually explicit material from them by threatening to post additional photographs, prosecutors alleged.

According to the justice department, Garcia Aranda admitted to knowingly distributing sexually explicit videos and images of children and possessing more than 600 such images.