Casper Man Sentenced to 170 Years on Six Counts of Child Pornography

A Casper man was recently sentenced to 170 years in prison for possessing and producing child pornography. A jury convicted 32-year-old Salvador Salas after a three-day trial, held in Casper in January. According to a media release from the Department of Justice, Chief U.S. District Court Judge Scott Skavdahl imposed the sentence and ordered Salas to pay $132,056 in restitution to cover the expenses for the victim’s care and treatment and $600 in special assessments.

Salas was an entrusted friend of the victim and the victim’s family. According to evidence presented at trial, the minor victim arrived home in the early morning hours of February 28, 2021, exhibiting signs of illicit substance intoxication, behaving strangely, and shaking. Her mother took the minor victim to the emergency room. There, she presented with burns on her lips consistent with a methamphetamine pipe and tested positive for methamphetamine. The mother sought the minor victim’s admission to the Wyoming Behavior Institute. The mother also reported to the police that the minor victim was with Salas at his home and had come home high.

Believing that Salas had supplied drugs to a minor, the Casper Police Department executed a search warrant at Salas’s home for evidence of drugs. Officers recovered various drugs and drug paraphernalia at his home. While there, officers developed probable cause to believe that Salas had taken sexually explicit images of the minor victim. The same day, officers executed a second search warrant at Salas’s home and collected his electronic devices. On his devices, the Wyoming Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (ICAC) found child pornography that had been downloaded from the internet and five videos and 47 photographs of the minor victim. This crime was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation, and the Casper Police Department.