Greenbelt, Maryland – U.S. District Judge Paul W. Grimm sentenced Wilmer Flores Mejia, age 44, a naturalized citizen of the United States residing in Cheverly, Maryland, to 14 years in federal prison, followed by 25 years of supervised release, for coercion and enticement of a minor to produce child pornography.  Judge Grimm also ordered that, upon his release from prison, Flores Mejia must register as a sex offender in the places where he resides, where he is an employee, and where he is a student, under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA).  The sentence was imposed on June 13, 2019.

The sentence was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Robert K. Hur and Special Agent in Charge Jennifer C. Boone of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Baltimore Field Office.

According to his plea agreement, in December 2015, Flores Mejia used a messaging application to communicate with the victim, who was a 15-year-old boy living in El Salvador.  During the course of a sexually explicit conversation, Flores Mejia agreed to pay the victim to send Flores Mejia a sexually explicit photograph of himself, which the victim did.

Flores Mejia’s messaging account showed that he had engaged in other sexually explicit conversation with minor boys on several occasions.  Cellular phones seized from Flores Mejia contain conversations with minor boys, including regarding sexual topics.  A federal search warrant executed at the residence of Flores Mejia in Maryland also recovered a notebook which contained the names and ages of boys from a village in El Salvador, including the name and age of the victim.

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 Attorney’s 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.justice.gov/psc.  For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.justice.gov/psc and click on the "Resources" tab on the left of the page.       

United States Attorney Robert K. Hur commended the FBI for its work in the investigation and thanked the Prince George’s County Police Department, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the Policia Nacional Civil of El Salvador for their assistance.  Mr. Hur thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph R. Baldwin, who prosecuted the federal case.

 

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