Gisela Castro Medina sentenced to 3 years in prison for helping Anton Lazzaro in sex trafficking case
MINNEAPOLIS — A 21-year-old woman who helped GOP donor Anton Lazzaro sex traffic underage girls at "every step of the way" was sentenced Tuesday to three years in prison.
Gisela Castro Medina, 21, recruited six girls to have sex with now 32-year-old Lazzaro, documents say. The two met in May of 2020 on a sugar daddy website; Castro Medina brought a 16-year-old girl to Lazzaro's condo at the Hotel Ivy, and Lazzaro paid them $600 for sex.
Over the course of the next seven months, Castro Medina - who knew the girls were minors - showed pictures of them to Lazzaro. Lazzaro would then compensate Castro Medina with payments for rent, tuition, utilities, and travel expenses after he had sex with them, court documents say.
At one point in March of 2021, Castro Medina and Lazzaro paid a 15-year-old girl to prevent her to talking to law enforcement.
Castro Medina pleaded guilty in December to one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors and one count of obstruction. In addition to her three-year prison sentence, she must spend five years under supervised release.
A federal judge on Tuesday gave her what he called a "sufficient" sentence because she cooperated with prosecutors and gave a day long testimony during Lazzaro's trial.
"I'm not sorry I got caught. In fact, I'm grateful that I got caught," Castro Medina said in court. "The agencies and prosecutors, without intending to do so gave me a whole new outlook on life . . . I could not be more thankful for them."
Parents of one victim were strongly opposed to giving Castro Medina any leniency, telling her "your soul is as dark as your eyes, and I despise you . . . what she has done to my daughter is a lifetime sentence."
Lazzaro was charged in August of 2021 with recruiting minor victims to engage in commercial sex acts. He was found guilty of all the charges in March.
MORE: Who is Anton "Tony" Lazzaro?
The uncovering of Lazzaro's actions led to fallout within the Minnesota Republican Party — he'd given the party about $150,000 during his time and was connected to the then-chair, Jennifer Carnahan. There were cries for Carnahan to resign from within the Minnesota GOP and increased scrutiny about a toxic work environment in her office. She stepped down a week after the charges against Lazzaro were unsealed.
Castro Medina will arrive in prison for her three-year sentence on Oct. 10.