Defendant caught by Homeland Security Investigations and INTERPOL
DENVER - Alexander Isaiah Perez, age 22, of Metro Denver was sentenced today to serve 240 months in federal prison, followed by 20 years on supervised release, for the production of child pornography, U.S. Attorney Jason R. Dunn and HSI Denver Special Agent in Charge Steven Cagen announced. The sentence was handed down by Chief U.S. District Court Judge Marcia S. Krieger. Perez appeared at the sentencing hearing in custody and was remanded at its conclusion.
According to the stipulated facts contained in the defendant’s plea agreement, on May 25, 2017, the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Cyber Crime Center (C3), Child Exploitation Investigations Unit (CEIU), received information from the INTERPOL Specialist Group on Crimes Against Children regarding a series of images depicting the sexual exploitation of a minor male, later identified as Minor #1, that had been posted on an Internet bulletin board. HSI C3 CEIU took additional investigative steps and forwarded the investigative information received from INTERPOL and the results of their investigation to HSI Denver.
The information relayed by INTERPOL to HSI C3 CEIU reflects that sexually explicit images depicting Minor #1 had been posted by multiple users on “The Bulletin Board" located on an anonymity network known as “The Onion Router" or Tor. Tor was originally designed, implemented, and deployed as a project of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory for the primary purpose of protecting government communications. Numerous images of Minor #1 were recovered from The Bulletin Board.
During the investigation agents identified another photograph of the defendant taken by the same digital camera that was used to take images posted on The Bulletin Board. Additional images of the defendant were posted on his social networking accounts. Agents determined from one of the defendant’s Facebook accounts that he took a job as a summer camp counselor in Colorado. A search warrant executed at the camp resulted in the seizure of the digital camera identified during the investigation, as well as a laptop and an iPhone, all belonging to the defendant. The investigation revealed that the defendant both took pictures of and live-streamed his sexual abuse of Minor #1. The sexually explicit conduct occurred in the December 2014 to January 2015 time frame.
This matter was investigated by HSI Denver, as well as INTERPOL. The defendant was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Alecia L. Riewerts.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc. For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab “resources."
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
