US' ICE arrest Puerto Rican man for child porn
Published:Sunday | March 2, 2014 | 1:14 PM
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, March 2, CMC – The United States Immigration and Law Enforcement (ICE) agency says a 21-year-old Puerto Rico man has been arrested at his home for production of child pornography.
On Saturday ICE said its Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents made the arrest after receiving a referral from the Puerto Rico Police Department.
According to the criminal complaint, William Vergara-Alamo began text messaging with a 14-year-old girl, identified as Jane Doe, after she mistakenly called his cellphone.
Within two weeks of communicating with her, the complaint says Vergara-Alamo asked Jane Doe to send him photographs of herself.
The charging document alleges that, on one occasion, Vergara-Alamo instructed Jane Doe to take a sexually explicit photograph and then send it to him.
The criminal complaint additionally alleges when Jane Doe told Vergara-Alamo she was not going to text him anymore, he told her she could not stop talking to him, and she could not talk to anyone else.
Vergara-Alamo also allegedly threatened Jane Doe saying he would send the sexually explicit photographs to her mother.
The criminal complaint further alleges Vergara-Alamo opened a fake Facebook account, posted 14 of the sexually explicit images of Jane Doe and then sent inbox messages from the fake account to Jane Doe and some of her father’s friends.
ICE said HSI special agents later identified Vergara-Alamo’s residence and executed a US federal search warrant resulting in the seizure of Vergara-Alamos’s cellular phone.
A preliminary forensic analysis of the telephone yielded the presence of several images depicting female minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct.
Vergara-Alamo had his initial hearing before US Magistrate Silvia Carreño-Coll on Thursday and was transferred to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Guaynabo to await the outcome of his case.
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