Jacksonville Man Sentenced to More Than 19 Years in Federal Prison for Production of Child Pornography and Making False Statements to the FBI

JACKSONVILLE, FL—U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard sentenced Alfredo Martinez Riquene (44, Jacksonville) yesterday to 19 years and seven months in federal prison for the production of child pornography involving a minor. He was also sentenced to a concurrent term of eight years’ imprisonment for making false statements to the FBI. The court also ordered Riquene to serve a 10-year term of supervised release following his release from prison and to register as a sex offender and forfeit his computer media.

According to court testimony and evidence introduced during trial, from February 24, 2010 through March 31, 2010, Riquene engaged in commercial sex acts with a 15-year-old minor female on five to 10 occasions at his residence in Jacksonville. The child had become addicted to crack cocaine and was introduced to prostitution by other individuals as a way to obtain more crack cocaine or money to purchase more of the drug. On one such occasion, while the minor child and Riquene were engaged in a commercial sex act, he made a video recording of the sexually explicit conduct.

On July 28, 2010, an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and three Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office detectives interviewed Riquene at his residence. Riquene acknowledged that he knew the minor child. However, when asked about his relationship with her, Riquene falsely stated that the minor child had never been in his bedroom or in any part of his house, that he had never had sex with her, and that he had never touched her.

Information obtained during the investigation revealed that the minor child had, in fact, used Riquene’s computer to access her Myspace account while she was at Riquene’s residence. Subsequent search warrants and a forensic analysis of the computer media located at Riquene’s residence revealed that the minor child’s Myspace account had been accessed using his computer. Moreover, several videos were discovered on Riquene’s computer hard disk drive, including one depicting the minor child and Riquene engaged in sexually explicit conduct. At least two other videos showed Riquene engaged in commercial sex acts with adult female prostitutes.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Mac D. Heavener, Diidri W. Robinson, and D. Rodney Brown.

It is another 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 Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), 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.projectsafechildhood.gov. For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov and click on the tab “other resources.”