47-year-old Aurelio Benjamin Cerella has been charged with online solicitation of a minor after a weekslong investigation between BCSO and the U.S. Secret Service.
BEXAR COUNTY, Texas — Bexar County deputies have arrested an aircraft mechanic accused of soliciting a minor online who was actually an undercover investigator.
In a news conference Wednesday evening, Sheriff Javier Salazar explained that 47-year-old Aurelio Benjamin Cerella has been charged with online solicitation of a minor after a weekslong investigation between BCSO and the U.S. Secret Service.
Officials got tips that Cerella had been engaged with who he believed to be a minor girl online.
This prompted a BCSO investigator to go undercover as a 16-year-old girl, messaging Cerella.
Cerella’s username was allegedly “Proudbares” on the platform used, a “non-mainstream” platform Salazar says is mainly used by “minors and pedophiles.”
The messages on the app became “explicitly sexual in nature,” according to Salazar, leading to Cerella allegedly sending photos of his genitalia to who he thought was a teen girl.
A warrant was then issued for Cerella’s arrest, and he was taken into custody Wednesday as he left his place of work.
Salazar says Cerella is an aircraft mechanic for a larger aviation firm in Bexar County. A LinkedIn profile matching Cerella’s name lists him as an aviation mechanic with the U.S. Navy Reserve.
Items of interest from Cerella’s west Bexar County home have been seized as the investigation continues.
This is the second online solicitation of a minor arrest in the last 10 days for BCSO.
