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Jose Minaya, 27, “used a web-based application to engage an 11-year-old child in a sexually explicit conversation online [and] ultimately instructed the child to take sexually explicit photographs and send them to him,” U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said on Jan. 6.
This came after Minaya used another web-based application to “upload an unrelated video depicting the graphic sexual assault of a child to the Internet, where it was publicly available,” says a complaint from the federal Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Investigations unit in Newark.
Agents arrested Minaya his home in May 2020.
They seized multiple electronic devices and eventually learned that Minaya had “used another application to entice an additional minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct,” Sellinger said.
Rather than risk the consequences of the trial, Minaya took a deal from the government.
He pleaded guilty on Thursday, Jan. 5, in U.S. District Court in Newark to one count each of producing child porn and online enticement.
U.S. District Judge Julien X. Neals scheduled Minaya for sentencing on May 9. Whatever amount of time he gets he’ll have to serve because there’s no parole in the federal prison system.
Sellinger credited special agents with the Department of Homeland Security – Homeland Security Investigations with the investigation leading to the plea secured by Assistant U.S. Attorney Shawn Barnes of his Criminal Division in Newark.
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