District of New Mexico

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Alexander M.M. Uballez, United States Attorney for the District of New Mexico, announced today that Martin Perea was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Perea, 42, of Los Lunas, pleaded guilty on Aug. 17, 2022, to two counts of production of a visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

According to court records, on July 1, 2015, the victim's mother discovered pornographic content of the eight-year-old victim on a memory card from Perea's cellular telephone. The victim's mother confronted Perea who apologized and blamed the victim's mother for his conduct. Then, Perea threatened to burn the victim's mother and her house down. The victim and her mother fled to Spokane, Washington where they contacted the Spokane Police Department.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation later recovered numerous video files of child pornography on the memory card.

In his plea agreement, Perea admitted that from Oct. 8, 2014, to March 2015, he knowingly used the victim to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing child pornography. Perea acknowledged that the victim was seven and eight years old at the time Perea committed the crimes.

Upon his release from prison, Martin will be subject to 25 years of supervised release and must register as a sex offender.

This case was investigated by the FBI Albuquerque Field Office with assistance from the Valencia County Sheriff's Office, the Spokane Police Department and the New Mexico Computer Forensic Laboratory as part of the New Mexico Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force. United States Attorney Alexander M.M. Uballez and Assistant United States Attorney Jaymie L. Roybal prosecuted 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 more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/.

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Office of the U.S. AttorneyDistrict of New Mexico(505) 346-7274

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