MORGANTOWN — A Kingwood man will spend four months behind bars in New York for attempting to send inappropriate pictures and videos to a minor.
David Casteel, 48, was sentenced in Oneida County Court by Judge Robert L. Bauer on Friday, Joshua Bauer, assistant district attorney, said.
Casteel will spend four months in Oneida County Jail, five years on probation and will pay $1,125 in various fees and costs, Bauer said. Those costs include DNA collection, administrative costs related to Casteel’s sex offender registration and a contribution to the Crime Victim Association fund.
Bauer said he believes Casteel’s probation will likely be transferred to the county where he lives.
The investigation started after a woman told the child advocacy center she caught her 16-year-old daughter talking to an adult male on the internet, Oneida County Prosecuting Attorney Scott McNamara previously told The Dominion Post.
The man was later determined to be Casteel. She took over her daughter’s Snapchat account and pretended to be the teen, McNamara said. Casteel did not send explicit photos or images to the daughter, but the mother, who then contacted police, McNamara said.
The victim’s mother said she checked her daughter’s social media accounts and phone regularly, but only caught Casteel because her daughter was grounded from using her phone and she took the phone with her to work.
The mother spoke with The Dominion Post on the condition she not be named — to protect her daughter.
“You know how teens are,” she said. “They sneak and use the phone anyways.”
She said it wasn’t until evening when she noticed a text from “DC.” The text was just “?” Her daughter said DC was a friend. The mother said she assumed it was a boy her daughter didn’t want to mention so she let it go.
However, she recognized the area code since she has family in West Virginia and she didn’t recognize Casteel’s number, she said.
The mother said spydialer.com helped her figure out what was going on. The site allows users to enter a phone number and listen to its outgoing voicemail message without the phone ringing. Spydialer.com also shows the name a phone is registered under.
The mother looked the name spydialer.com gave her up on Facebook and discovered it belonged to Casteel’s wife, she said. She said if it wasn’t for spydialer.com allowing her to hear a grown man’s voice she probably would have left it alone.
“I was fuming at this point and wanted to know what is going on,” she said.
Her daughter pointed to the Facebook profile picture of Casteel’s wife, which had him in it, the mother said.
Her daughter said Casteel told her he was 22. Casteel sent the girl a Facebook message but never met in person, the mother learned.
Police were unable to do anything since Casteel hadn’t broken any laws yet, the mother said. So, she contacted Casteel’s wife.
“I thought his wife deserved to know,” the mother said. The two had a conversation and the mother said she never had contact with Casteel’s wife again.
However, the victim’s mother said she doesn’t think Casteel’s wife ever spoke to her husband about the conversation.
“If she would have told him then I don’t think he would have sent pictures,” the mother said. “What guy in his right mind would send pictures knowing that they’re caught?”
“Or, maybe his wife didn’t believe her,” the mother said.
Twitter @WillDean_DP
WDean@DominionPost.com
