JACKSONVILLE, FL—United States District Judge Timothy J. Corrigan has sentenced Javier Guerrero Molina (34, citizen of Mexico) to 10 years in federal prison for attempting to transport a minor child from Las Vegas to Jacksonville with the intent that the child engage in sexual activity with him. Molina was in the United States illegally. He was arrested on May 30, 2014, at the Jacksonville International Airport.

According to court documents, on May 29, 2014, the Jacksonville Aviation Authority Police Department (JAAPD) received a telephone call from an individual who advised that a child had disappeared from her home in Las Vegas and was believed to be traveling by air to Jacksonville. JAAPD officers learned that the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) had made a “missing persons” entry regarding a 14-year-old female with the same name. A check of airline manifests confirmed that this child was listed as a passenger on a flight from Las Vegas to Jacksonville, with a connection in Charlotte, North Carolina. JAAPD coordinated with officers from the Charlotte-Mecklenberg Police Department (CMPD), who intercepted the child at the Charlotte International Airport. The child had been scheduled to board a flight from Charlotte to Jacksonville, due to arrive shortly after midnight on May 30, 2014. As the expected arrival time for the Jacksonville flight approached, a JAAPD officer observed Molina in a waiting area in the Jacksonville International Airport lobby. When asked by the officer, Molina advised that he was there to meet a particular passenger. He was subsequently detained and interviewed.

During an interview, Molina admitted that he had entered the United States in 1999 or 2000 by paying a smuggler $700 to help him cross the border on foot near Laredo, Texas. He also stated that he had previously engaged in sexual activity with the child in Jacksonville, before the child and her family moved to Las Vegas. He also stated that he had sent the child money to pay for a one-way airline ticket from Las Vegas to Jacksonville, and that he expected their sexual relationship to continue when the child returned to Jacksonville.

This case was investigated by the Jacksonville Aviation Authority Police Department, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Jacksonville and Charlotte, the Charlotte-Mecklenberg Police Department, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, and the Jacksonville State Attorney’s Office. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney D. Rodney Brown.

It is another case 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 United States Attorneys’ 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.