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Press Release

Texas Woman Sentenced to Five Years in Prison after Previously Pleading Guilty to Interstate Travel for the Purpose of Engaging in Illicit Sexual Conduct with Fifteen-Year-Old Franklinton Minor

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of Louisiana

U.S. Attorney Duane A. Evans announced that MARTHA OJEDA, age 42, of Pflugerville, Texas, was sentenced today by United States District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo to five years in prison followed by ten years of supervised release after previously pleading guilty to a one-count Bill of Information charging her with interstate travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct.  OJEDA will also have to register as a sex offender.

According to the court documents, in late February 2017, OJEDA met the minor, a fifteen-year-old boy who resided in Franklinton, Louisiana, on a social networking website.  From late February until early April, OJEDA and the minor engaged in sexually explicit correspondence, including simulating sexual intercourse and other sexual contact and plans to engage in sexual acts in the future, on numerous occasions.  During the correspondence, OJEDA requested and received sexually explicit images and videos of the minor via a social media-based instant messaging application. 

In early April, OJEDA and the minor made plans for OJEDA to travel to Louisiana to pick up the minor and return to Texas together for the purpose of engaging in sex and spending the rest of their lives together. On about April 8, 2017, OJEDA traveled by commercial bus and then by taxi from Texas to the minor’s Franklinton, Louisiana home.  OJEDA and the minor then traveled back to New Orleans, where they stayed in a hotel room together and engaged in sexual intercourse.  On about April 9, 2017, OJEDA and the minor travelled via commercial bus from New Orleans, Louisiana, to Houston, Texas, for the purpose of engaging in living together in a romantic relationship.   OJEDA and the minor then moved to Pflugerville, Texas, where they lived together until the minor was recovered by special agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation on May 12, 2017. 

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by 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 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 www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

The case was investigated by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Jordan Ginsberg.

Updated April 12, 2018