ALBUQUERQUE – Jason Christopher Davis, 46, of Las Cruces, N.M., pled guilty today in federal court to a child pornography charge.  Davis entered the guilty plea under a plea agreement that recommends a 15-year prison sentence followed by 20 years of supervised release.  Davis will also be required to register as a sex offender

Davis was arrested in May 2018, on a criminal complaint charging him with receiving child pornography in April 2018, in Dona Ana County, N.M.  According to the complaint, the Las Cruces Police Department executed a search warrant on an email account subscribed to Davis that was used to upload a video file containing child pornography.  The complaint further stated that on May 15, 2018, Homeland Security Investigations and the Las Cruces Police Department seized numerous items including digital media containing child pornography while executing a state search warrant at Davis’ residence.  At the time of these events, Davis was employed as a Supervisory U.S. Border Patrol Agent.

During today’s proceedings, Davis pled guilty to a felony information charging him with production of a visual depiction of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct.  In entering the guilty plea, Davis admitted that on May 17, 2015, he produced a child pornography video of a five-year-old minor child and uploaded the video onto his laptop computer.

Davis has been in federal custody since his arrest and will remain detained pending a sentencing hearing, which has yet to be scheduled.

The case was investigated by the Las Cruces office of HSI, the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the Las Cruces Police Department with assistance from the Office of Professional Responsibility of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Management Inquiry Team of the U.S. Border Patrol, the FBI, and the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office. 

Assistant U.S. Attorney Marisa A. Ong of the U.S. Attorney’s Las Cruces Branch Office is prosecuting the 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 information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/.  Individuals with information relating to suspected child predators and suspected child abuse are encouraged to contact the Children’s Advocacy Center at (575) 526-3437, or to contact Homeland Security Investigations at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE.

The case also was brought as a part of the New Mexico Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force’s mission, which is to locate, track, and capture Internet child sexual predators and Internet child pornographers in New Mexico.  There are 86 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies associated with the New Mexico ICAC Task Force, which is funded by a grant administered by the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office.  Anyone with information relating to suspected child predators and suspected child abuse is encouraged to contact federal or local law enforcement.