ALBUQUERQUE - Preston Coriz, 33, a member and resident of Kewa Pueblo, was sentenced today to 210 months years in federal prison for his aggravated child sexual abuse conviction. Coriz will be on supervised release for ten years after he completes his prison sentence. He also will be required be required to register as a sex offender.
The sentence was announced by Acting U.S. Attorney Damon P. Martinez, Carol K.O. Lee, Special Agent in Charge of the Albuquerque Division of the FBI, and DuWayne W. Honahni, Sr., Special Agent in Charge of District IV of BIA’s Office of Justice Services.
Coriz was arrested in Nov. 2012, on an indictment charging him with sexually abusing a child under the age of 12 years in Nov. 2008, in Indian Country (Kewa Pueblo) within Sandoval County, N.M. On July 11, 2013, Coriz pleaded guilty to the indictment and admitted sexually assaulting a child under the age of 12 by touching the child’s genitals with his hand and finger.
This case was investigated by the Albuquerque and Santa Fe offices of the FBI and the Southern Pueblos Agency of the BIA’s Office of Justice Services, and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kyle T. Nayback.
The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and DOJ’s 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 exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys