Maryland Man Pleads Guilty to Traveling Into the District of Columbia and Virginia to Engage in Illicit Sexual Conduct, Enticing a Minor, and Possession of Child Pornography

WASHINGTON—Andrew Ramos, 26, of Landover, Maryland, has pled guilty to federal charges of traveling interstate to engage in illicit sexual conduct, enticing a minor and possession of child pornography, announced U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr.; James W. McJunkin, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office; and Cathy L. Lanier, Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).

Ramos pled guilty on August 30, 2011 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The Honorable Rosemary M. Collyer is to sentence him on November 4, 2011. Pursuant to the court’s approval of the plea agreement, Ramos faces a likely sentencing range of 108 to 135 months in prison.

According to the government’s evidence, on March 2, 2010, an undercover officer with the FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force entered a social network site. The defendant contacted the undercover officer and they subsequently began communicating. During their conversation, Ramos expressed interest in having sexual contact with an underaged child. Over the course of the next year, the defendant engaged in numerous discussions with the undercover officer, during which they discussed plans for meeting and engaging in sexual acts with the child.

On March 15, 2011, the defendant traveled from Landover to his workplace in the District of Columbia and subsequently to a pre-arranged meeting place in Washington, D.C. When he arrived at the meeting place, he was arrested.

Following his arrest in March 2011, members of law enforcement identified videos of child pornography that Ramos possessed in his residence in Landover, Maryland.

Law enforcement also learned of an additional incident involving an actual underaged child who Ramos traveled to meet in February 2011, for purposes of engaging in sexual acts. Ramos traveled from his residence in Landover to Woodbridge, Virginia, where he met the child.

This case was brought as part of the Department of Justice’s Project Safe Childhood initiative and investigated by the FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force, which includes members of the FBI’s Washington Field Office and MPD.

Project Safe Childhood is 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 U.S. 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, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

In announcing the guilty plea, U.S. Attorney Machen, Assistant Director McJunkin and Chief Lanier praised the MPD detectives and special agents of the FBI Child Exploitation Task Force. They also commended Assistant U.S. Attorney David Last, who is prosecuting the case.