ALBUQUERQUE - Ernest Bewanika, 63, an enrolled member and resident of Zuni Pueblo, N.M., was sentenced yesterday in federal court in Albuquerque, N.M., to 18 years of imprisonment for sexually abusing a child under the age of 12 years of age. Bewanika will be on supervised release for five years after completing his prison sentence. He also will be required to register as a sex offender.
Bewanika was arrested on April 3, 2018, on a two-count indictment charging him with sexually abusing a child under the age of 12 years on two occasions.
In Sept. 2018, Bewanika pled to a felony information charging him with two counts of abusive sexual contact. In his plea agreement, Bewanika admitted to sexually abusing a minor under the age of 12 years in locations within the Zuni Pueblo in McKinley County, N.M. Bewanika admitted that he engaged in sexual contact with the victim between Nov. 2014 and Nov. 2015, and again between Nov. 2015 and Jan. 2016.
The case was investigated by the Gallup office of the FBI and the Zuni Pueblo Tribal Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Elisa C. Dimas prosecuted this case 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
