LUBBOCK, Texas - Marcos Antonio Gamez, 23, of Sonora, Texas, was sentenced this morning by Senior U.S. District Judge Sam R. Cummings to 262 months in federal prison, following his guilty plea in October 2015 to one count of production of child pornography and one count of enticement of a minor. Today’s announcement was made by U.S. Attorney John Parker of the Northern District of Texas.
Gamez has been in custody since his arrest in August 2015.
According to documents filed in his case, in March 2015, Gamez engaged in sexually explicit conduct with a minor female, and he used his cellphone to produce a video of that conduct. Gamez also persuaded this minor female to recruit another minor female to join them in sexually explicit conduct, but this second minor female declined to participate.
The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative, which was launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice, 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. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/. For more information about internet safety education, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/ and click on the tab “resources."
The Texas Department of Public Safety, Texas Rangers, the Sonora Police Department, the Sutton County Sheriff’s Office and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven M. Sucsy, of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Lubbock, Texas, was in charge of the prosecution.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
