Skip to main content
Press Release

Registered Sex Offender Returned to Federal Prison for Six More Years

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of Mississippi

 

Jackson, Miss. – David Aaron Smith-Garcia, also known as David Garland Atwood II, 34, of Vicksburg, was sentenced on December 21, 2017, by U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate, to serve an additional six years in federal prison followed by a lifetime of supervised release, for violating the terms of his supervised release, announced U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst and FBI Special Agent in Charge Christopher Freeze.

This was the third time that Smith-Garcia, who legally changed his name in June 2017 through proceedings in the Warren County Chancery Court, has been returned to prison for violating the terms of his supervised release.

Smith-Garcia is a registered sex offender who originally pled guilty on April 1, 2005, to one count of using the internet to knowingly persuade, induce and entice a person he believed to be under the age of eighteen years to engage in sexual activity and to one count of wire fraud. He served 63 months in federal prison for his original convictions. Smith-Garcia violated the terms of his supervised release and was sentence to serve an additional 5 months incarceration on March 23, 2010. Smith-Garcia violated the terms of his supervised release a second time in 2010 and 2011, and he was sentenced March 29, 2013, to serve an additional six years in federal prison.

In April 2017, following his release from federal prison, Smith-Garcia violated the terms of his supervision for a third time. After weeks of hearings and testimony, on December 21, 2017, United States District Judge Wingate found Smith-Garcia guilty of seven violations of his supervision, including:

- unlawfully and feloniously using electronic communications for the purpose of threatening, terrifying and harassing a victim in violation of Mississippi law;

- willfully, unlawfully and feloniously exposing another person to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) through engaging in unprotected sex on two occasions without notifying the victim that Smith-Garcia is HIV positive, in violation of Mississippi law; and

- leaving the Southern District of Mississippi without the permission of either the Court or the US Probation Office.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Dave Fulcher.

Updated January 12, 2018