A North Texas man got 20 years in federal prison for creating a fake Facebook profile which he used to lure and, later, pressure young girls into sending him compromising nude selfies.
In yet another project helmed by Project Safe Childhood, U.S. Attorney John Parker for the Northern District of Texas announced Monday that U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade sentenced Dallas resident Francisco Turrubiartes, 27, to 20 years in prison. In April of 2016, Turrubiartes pleaded guilty to one count of production of child pornography in this case.
“The sexual exploitation and victimization of underage girls, here 13 years old, is a despicable and heinous crime,” said Parker. “My office will continue to aggressively prosecute those who engage in this reprehensible behavior.”
The dangers of unsuspecting minors interacting over social media with strangers cannot be overstated. In this case, court documents revealed that Turrubiartes used an alias to create a fake Facebook account and posed online as an underage girl in 2012. Initially, he sought to cajole actual female minors into taking nude selfies to send to him but soon, it turned into pressure and threats.
Turrubiartes used the alias to request that a 15-year-old girl identified as Jane Doe #1 send naked pictures. Once she did, Turrubiartes threatened to post the images all over the internet and tell her mother if she did not get a different girl, the 13-year-old known as Jane Doe #3, to send him nude snapshots as well.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s office, Turrubiartes then persuaded, induced, and enticed Jane Doe #3 to engage in sexually explicit acts for the purpose of producing a visual depiction of such conduct. The 13-year-old sent Turrubiartes the indecent images to his fake Facebook account on August 10, 2012. Subsequently, Jane Doe #3 received a Twitter message stating: “send more images or I will post them and tell your mom.” Turrubiartes went on to threaten Jane Doe #3 for three years.
During this time, he demanded that Jane Doe #1 send lewd photographs of her then two-year-old niece. He even asked Jane Doe #3 for naked pictures of her six-year-old sister.
After obtaining a search warrant, Dallas detectives combed through Turrubiartes’ computer and fake Facebook account, finding the conversations with these two female victims plus several online chats with other people who Turrubiartes asked they send to him nude photos of children.
The Dallas Morning News reported that Turrubiartes was friends with the brother of the 13-year-old girl, according to court documents. Investigators interviewed the brother. He said that “Turrubiartes was always into nude images of children” and divulged that Turrubiartes bragged about creating fake Facebook profiles and pretending to be a young girl online. Apparently, Turrubiartes showed the brother a salacious photo of the other Jane Doe.
The Dallas Police Department and the FBI investigated this case, which was part of Project Safe Childhood, the nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the U.S. Department of Justice that works to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorney’s Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals, who sexually exploit children, and identify and rescue victims.
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