Fresno woman gets 3 years for violating order, arranging son's abduction

Shana Gaviola was sentenced to three years in prison after federal prosecutors said she violated a Fresno County protection order and helped arrange the forced transport of her estranged teenage son from Fresno to Missouri.

The sentence, imposed in Fresno, closed a case that began as a family separation and turned into a federal kidnapping-style prosecution. Prosecutors said Gaviola’s son, Blake McGee, had been living apart from her since 2020 with another family. McGee then filed for emancipation and sought a domestic violence restraining order on July 13, 2021.

A Fresno County Superior Court judge issued a temporary restraining order on July 14, 2021. Court records say Clovis police served Gaviola by email the next day, and McGee’s attorney served her in person on Aug. 18, 2021. The order barred harassment, surveillance, blocking McGee’s movements and any direct or indirect contact. It also warned that she could face a federal crime if she caused him to travel out of state to evade the order.

Federal prosecutors said Gaviola ignored those restrictions. An indictment filed in 2022 charged her and Julio Sandoval with interstate violation of a protection order and aiding and abetting. Sandoval, a Missouri resident who was then dean of students at a boarding school in Stockton, Missouri, and founder of an agency that transported minors there, was later acquitted.

According to prosecutors, McGee was taken on Aug. 21, 2021, from a business in Fresno, handcuffed, and forced into a car. He remained restrained for more than 24 hours during the drive to Missouri and was then held at the boarding school until his father retrieved him. The FBI investigated the case with help from the Fresno Police Department and Clovis Police Department.

A federal jury convicted Gaviola on Dec. 9, 2025, after a five-day trial. She was sentenced Monday by U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour under a statute that carried a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The case shows how a local protection order can become the basis for a federal prosecution when someone allegedly crosses state lines to evade it. For Fresno families, the warning signs were stark in this case: a minor seeking emancipation, a restraining order that specifically blocks contact and movement, and any plan to remove the protected person from California after a court has ordered otherwise. The destination also mattered. Agape Boarding School in Stockton, Missouri, later came under abuse scrutiny and was ordered shut down by a Missouri judge in September 2022 before announcing closure in January 2023.