California Man Travels To Atlanta To Have Sex With A Minor

ATLANTA - A California man has been sentenced to 35 years in prison for traveling to Atlanta to have sex with a 9-year-old girl and enticing a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity. Craig Alan Castaneda, 40, will also have supervised release for 10 years after serving his sentence.

According to federal prosecutors, in early April 2015, an undercover FBI agent posted an ad on Craigslist in which he portrayed himself as a mother in search of a “teacher” for her daughter. Castaneda responded to the ad the next day and described his previous experience in molesting children, including a child as young as 4. He also said he had been “grooming” another child to be molested but that the family had moved away a few months earlier.

Castaneda continued to communicate with the undercover agent for several weeks, and made plans to travel from San Diego to Atlanta. When he stepped off the plane at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Airport on May 2, 2015, he was met by FBI agents and was taken into custody.

Later, friends staying at Castaneda’s apartment in California found his computers contained child porn. The FBI discovered hundreds of videos and images of children being sexually abused. They also found evidence that he paid minors to send him pornographic videos over Skype.