An elementary school teacher from South Texas will spend six years in prison for sexually exploiting underage girls from the Philippines via social media.
This week, 47-year-old Rico Giovanni Machietto from Harlingen, Texas, went before the U.S. District Court Judge Rolando Olvera Jr., where he received an 80 month sentence on child pornography charges. Machietto had previously pleaded guilty in October 2021.
The case against Machietto began in 2018 when agents with Homeland Security Investigations received information from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that Machietto was receiving child exploitation files through Facebook.
Authorities followed the data trail to Machiatto’s home in Harlingen, Texas, and continued investigating the case. Federal agents followed Machieto from his home to his place of employment at Vermillion Elementary in Brownsville.
Authorities executed a search warrant and found files including one video and 106 sexually explicit photos on Machietto’s MacBook, which led to his arrest on January 23, 2020.
During his guilty plea, Machietto admitted that from December 2017 to June 2018, he contacted underage girls from the Philippines using Facebook accounts under aliases, such as Rich Caballero, Giovanni Fattorini, and John Fattor. Machiatto would befriend, seduce, and even threaten girls into sending nude photos. If the girls were poor, he would wire money to their families. Court documents revealed that Machiatto sent over $20,000 to the Philippines.
Luisana Moreno is a contributing writer for Breitbart Texas.
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