Lincoln Man Sentenced to Life for Preying on Young Girls
ROSEVILLE, CA — “On Oct. 31, 2025, the Honorable Judge Horst sentenced Marco Montejano, 26, to more than 270 years to life in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for lewd acts on multiple young children, among other charges.
The Lincoln Police Department responded to a report at an apartment complex where Montejano had grabbed a young girl into his apartment to perform a sex act.
Upon further investigation it was found that Montejano had preyed on multiple victims from his apartment in the same complex.
The victims reported the predator reached out to them on the social media platform Snapchat — even though they were not friends on the platform nor had any mutual friends in common. The defendant pretended to be a teenage boy, asked to meet up in a public area in the complex, and then would lure or force the children into his apartment.
The Lincoln Police Department confiscated the defendant’s phone where they found child pornography and information corroborating the accounts of the child victims, which led to his arrest and the Placer County District Attorney’s Office filing charges.
In Oct. 2025, a Placer County jury found the defendant guilty of 27 criminal charges including lewd acts under 14, oral copulation and more.
The prosecutor on the case explained, “The defendant’s conduct was not impulsive or opportunistic. It was deliberate, methodical, and deeply exploitative. He invested significant time and effort into identifying, targeting, and grooming his victims through Snapchat. He maintained constant communication with them, carefully cultivating trust and emotional dependence in order to manipulate. This was not a momentary lapse in judgment—it was a sustained campaign of predation.”
This case was prosecuted by the office’s Sexual Assault Unit (SAU) and supported by the office’s Victim Services Unit and MDIC Center.
Due to the facts of this case, and an emerging trend being seen in other cases referred to the office, the SAU is launching the Placer DA’s AppSafe Initiative.
This initiative seeks to bring attention to these dangerous social media trends, give tips on how to put protective settings on children’s phones and prevent future victims of online predators. Learn more at www.placer.ca.gov/AppSafe
In this case — Snapchat’s Snap Map shows users’ live locations on an interactive map and makes nearby profiles visually discoverable — often revealing Bitmojis and other cues that hint at a user’s age or gender.
That visible proximity lets predators identify and target children who appear nearby, then use in-app messaging to groom or arrange contact — a high-risk channel unless location sharing is turned off or set to Ghost Mode and strict friend-only settings are enforced.
The Placer County District Attorney’s Office takes cases of child exploitation seriously and works with the Placer County MDIC and Children’s Advocacy Center to find justice for the child through a trauma informed approach to the criminal justice process. They also proactively work with MDIC to educate Placer County communities on the signs and risks of social media, grooming and more. Learn more about MDIC at www.placer.ca.gov/MDIC @followers”
