Rodymar Lelis also pleaded guilty to providing false answers in his visa application
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Rodymar Lelis, 31, of the Philippines, was sentenced in federal court on Dec. 6 to three years in prison for possession of visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct and false swearing in immigration matters. Lelis pleaded guilty to these charges on July 8.
According to court records, Lelis moved from the Philippines to the United States following the issuance of a non-immigrant visa. In his visa application, Lelis falsely answered “no" to the question, “Have you ever been arrested or convicted of any offense or crime, even though the subject of a pardon, amnesty, or other similar action?" Lelis was arrested in 2018 in the Philippines, and knew that his answer was false.
After arriving in the United States and while staying at a hotel near the airport in Albuquerque, on Sept. 7, 2019, Lelis logged into the Facebook Messenger application on his cellphone. The application contained previously-uploaded child pornography, which caused Facebook to generate a CyberTipline Report to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).
Upon his release from prison, Lelis will be subject to six years of supervised release and must register as a sex offender. However, Lelis has consented to deportation following his release.
The case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) with assistance from the Regional Computer Forensic Laboratory.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
