Vicente Castillo Jr., 37, wept loudly in court after U.S. District Judge Wesley Hendrix read aloud a jury's verdict finding him guilty of enticing a 13-year-old girl he'd been sexually abusing for years.
Castillo's punishment, which ranges from 10 years to life in federal prison, will be determined by Hendrix at a sentencing hearing in late January.
Castillo's verdict came after a two-day trial that began Oct. 5 in federal court during which jurors heard from a now 14-year-old girl who recounted years of sexual abuse at Castillo's hands.
Castillo pleaded not guilty to a federal indictment accusing him of using his cellphone, a facility and means of interstate and foreign commerce, to persuade, induce, entice and coerce the girl into sexual activity.
Castillo also faces in Yoakum County a count of continuous sexual abuse of a child, which carries a punishment of 25 years to life in prison without parole.
Prosecutors built their case against him on text messages found on his phone and testimony from the girl, who had known Castillo since she was 3 years old.
The girl told jurors the abuse began when she was 6 years old, with Castillo touching her inappropriately.
Three years later, she said Castillo's abuse escalated as he made her engage in sexual acts.
When she was 11 or 12, he began raping her. It was also the age she was given a cell phone, which he would use to send text messages summoning her to him so he could abuse her.
The messages themselves didn't contain explicit sexual messages but appeared, on the surface at least, mundane conversations between a parent and a child.
However, the girl told jurors Castillo didn't typically summon her by text message. Instead, he often called out to her.
She said she knew when he sent her a text message past her bedtime summoning her to the living room where he slept it was to sexually abuse her.
The text messages summoning her to him often included instructions about not closing her door too loud and turning off her light so as not to wake anybody.
"Turn off your light and come here, real quick," one text message Castillo sent the girl read.
The messages shown to jurors were extracted from Castillo's phone as the girl said he made her delete the messages on her phone or delete them himself.
Castillo also bought her gifts such as skin care products and food in exchange for sex.
"(The abuse) would happen anyway so I would rather get the stuff that I needed," she told jurors.
One time, Castillo gave her an alcoholic beverage before abusing her.
"I was less able to resist," she said.
She told jurors that resisting Castillo was futile and would only make him more aggressive when he abused her.
At some point, she stopped fighting altogether.
"I didn't like saying anything to him because he would get upset."
The girl told jurors she realized that what Castillo was doing to her was wrong from sex-education classes but kept the abuse a secret because he told her that if she told anyone about the abuse, she, her mother and her siblings would end up homeless and people would see her differently.
"I wanted to protect my mom and my sisters and I didn't want to be looked at differently," she told jurors.
The abuse was revealed in November 2025 when the toll of Castillo's abuse overwhelmed the girl and she began acting out.
The girl told jurors she was prone to panic attacks and described one she experienced.
The girl's mother told jurors that she saw her daughter and Castillo arguing at church and Castillo told her to take her daughter's phone because of her "attitude."
However, the girl's mother told jurors that her daughter's behavior that day was out of character and confronted her about it.
She said her daughter began rocking back and forth, telling her she couldn't tell her, that "he said it would ruin everything," the woman said.
Later that day, she said her daughter gave her a folded loose-leaf notebook paper in which she scribbled three lines that disclosed the abuse she'd suffered at Castillo's hands since she was 6.
The girl told jurors that she and her mother formed a plan to get evidence against Castillo.
The girl said she offered to record Castillo abusing her.
The girl told jurors that any conversation about the abuse were said in person, including the consequences of telling anyone about it.
Ultimately, the plan they formed was to secretly record Castillo's reaction when the girl told him that she might be pregnant.
An amplified version of the recording, which was captured by the girl's phone hidden in the pocket of her hooded sweatshirt, was played to jurors.
Castillo could be heard telling the girl that there was "no way" she could be pregnant.
However, Castillo told her he would buy her a pregnancy test.
The girl's mother told jurors she stayed in her bedroom and could hear that Castillo and her daughter were talking but didn't make out what they were saying until her daughter sent her the recording five minutes later.
Meanwhile, Castillo told her he was going to the store to buy beer.
After returning, she said her daughter walked past her, flashed the pregnancy test he bought and went to the bathroom after which she walked past her to show her that it was negative.
The girl's mother told jurors that while the abuse was kept from her she had suspicions that Castillo might have been unfaithful, saying she once saw a sex toy she didn't recognize and condoms he'd stashed in his desk.
One time, she said she caught Castillo stumbling out of her daughter's room. She said Castillo told her that he'd been drinking and mistakenly went into the girl's room thinking it was the bathroom.
She said she checked the refrigerator and saw that Castillo drank three beers that night, not enough for him to be impaired to the point of mixing up rooms.
However, she said she checked on her daughter who appeared to be sleeping and undisturbed.
She told jurors that she listened to the recording that night and was overcome with vengeance.
She said she planned to use the knife she kept by her bedside to kill Castillo.
"I was gonna slit his throat," she told jurors.
Investigating reported child sexual abuse in Yoakum County
However, police officers arrived at their home minutes after she sent the recording to her mother, who called them.
Castillo did not testify, however, jurors heard his interview with a Denver City police detective at the Yoakum County jail during which he admitted to sexually abusing the girl, saying she manipulated him into the abuse and he was too scared to tell anyone about it.
FBI special Agent Brittany Smith told jurors that Castillo's case came to her attention during a regular meeting with area law enforcement.
She told jurors that the initial investigation indicated that Castillo took a picture of the girl's genitals and she reviewed the evidence to determine if federal charges of possession or production of child pornography were appropriate.
Smith told jurors that a data extraction of Castillo's phone yielded an image of what appeared to be a girl's genitals. However, she said she was unable to confirm that it was the girl's or that it was made for sexual purposes, as the girl said she asked Castillo to examine a rash developing in that area.
However, it was during her interview with the girl that evidence was revealed of Castillo's phone use to facilitate the sexual acts with her.
Defense attorneys argued that while the evidence presented against Castillo could satisfy the elements of the state charges he faced, the evidence in his federal trial did not meet the elements of the federal charge of enticement of a minor.
Jeff Sheets told jurors in his closing argument that the investigation by FBI Special Agent Brittany Smith opened the possibility that the girl was coached into testifying that the text messages found on Castillo's phone were meant to coerce her into sexual activity with him.
He said the girl's testimony on the witness stand contained inconsistencies with information she gave investigators, forensic interviewers and the doctor at her sexual assault exam.
Sheets argued that the girl's interview with Smith was not recorded, which left room to speculate that the agent, who told jurors she worked at the Child Advocacy Center at one point, may have used leading questions to plant the idea that Castillo's text messages were meant to induce her to sexual activity.
Sheets argued that the girl was motivated to provide Smith with anything that would convict Castillo.
"She's motivated to make sure (Castillo) doesn't come back," he said .
Woolam described Sheet's argument as "preposterous."
She argued there was no evidence the girl was coached into testifying the way she did, nor was there any evidence Smith planted the idea that Castillo's text messages were inducing her into sexual activity.
She told jurors the details in the girl's testimony were born out of her lived experience of Castillo's abuse.
Gabriel Monte is the criminal justice reporter for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal in Texas. Have a news tip for him? Email him at gmonte@lubbockonline.com.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Yoakum County man found guilty on federal child enticement charge
