Dublin man falls to online exploitation crackdown

SACRAMENTO — A Dublin man was sentenced Thursday in federal court to a decade in prison for using the Internet to seek sex with an underage female.

According to Assistant United States Attorney Michelle Rodriguez, who prosecuted the case, Jerald P. D’Souza used Internet websites like Yahoo!, MySpace and other chat rooms to entice an individual he believed was a 13-year-old Truckee girl. The individual with whom D’Souza was communicating between the dates of Dec. 28, 2008 and Feb. 7, 2009 was, in fact, a confidential FBI informant in El Dorado County.

D’Souza was arrested after he made the trek from his home in Dublin to Truckee, where he planned to engage in illicit sexual activity with the person he thought was a minor. D’Souza brought with him various gifts, condoms and liquor. The former electrical engineer also had a laptop computer with a webcam and pornography. D’Souza planned to take the minor to a local Truckee motel or a motel in Reno, Nev. He pleaded guilty to the charges this past August and has been in custody since his arrest on March 6.

D’Souza will likely be deported after completion of his sentence.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, PSC marshals federal, state and local resources to apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims.

This case was the product of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the South Lake Tahoe Police Department, and the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office.

For more information, visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov or call the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California and ask to speak with the PSC coordinator.