Mexican National Sentenced For Receiving Child Sexual Exploitation Material

MUSKOGEE, OKLAHOMA – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma announced that Brandon Leal Castro, age 34, of Mexico, was sentenced to 97 months in prison for one count of Receipt of Certain Material Involving the Sexual Exploitation of a Minor. Castro will also be required to register pursuant to the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act.

The charge arose from an investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, the District 16 Drug and Violent Crime Task Force, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

On July 30, 2025, Castro pleaded guilty to the charge.  According to investigators, on November 14, 2024, Castro knowingly received a visual depiction of a prepubescent minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct through the internet.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.  Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims.  For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.

The Honorable Ronald A. White, Chief U.S. District Judge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, presided over the hearing.  Castro will remain in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service pending transportation to a designated United States Bureau of Prisons facility to serve a non-paroleable sentence of incarceration.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicole Paladino represented the United States.