Sailor used Instagram to ‘groom’ NC teen for sex while on assignment overseas, feds say
U.S. border patrol agents at Washington Dulles International Airport caught a 37-year-old sailor trying to reenter the country this year with hundreds of images of child pornography on his phone — including a conversation with a teenage girl in North Carolina “containing sexual innuendos,” according to the Justice Department.
Now he’s going to prison.
U.S. District Judge Rossie D. Alston Jr. sentenced Martin Nieves Huizar to nine years in prison on Wednesday after he pleaded guilty to transporting child pornography in July, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia announced in a news release.
Huizar was also ordered to pay more than $40,000 in fines and at least $10,000 in restitution to the victims.
“The Defendant had over 600 images and videos of child pornography stored on multiple devices, some of which contained images of sexual abuse of infants and toddlers,” court filings state. “He carried this collection of child pornography with him from country to country as he traveled the world working for the United States government, including while detailed to the State Department from the United States Navy.”
A defense attorney representing Huizar did not immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment Thursday.
According to court filings, Huizar was flying into Dulles on Jan. 4 from Frankfurt, Germany, when he was stopped by U.S. Custom and Border Protection Officers.
The officers searched his bags and found a tablet, iPhone and Galaxy smart phone containing child pornography, court filings state. In an interview with Homeland Security agents at the airport, prosecutors said Huizar copped to downloading the material as well as chatting with a teenage girl on Instagram using the handle @urnowownd.
Prosecutors obtained search warrants for the Instagram account and recovered his exchange with the girl — a 15-year-old in North Carolina who lived with her parents, according to court filings.
In the messages, prosecutors said Huizar offered to get a phone “for my baby girl” so that her parents couldn’t “snoop.” He also allegedly called her “a very sexy young lady” and made plans to visit her and get them a hotel room.
“I’ll have to look tomorrow at flights……. How often do you invite old men to come see you lol,” Huizar wrote in one message to the girl, according to court filings.
The girl later told investigators Huizar planned to visit her from Jan. 10-12 — a week after he returned from his overseas assignment, prosecutors said.
Huizar was charged in a criminal complaint in March. When law enforcement arrested him at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., on March 19, prosecutors said investigators found more child pornography on his personal cell phone. A federal judge ordered Huizar remain in jail, citing the gravity of his alleged offenses involving minors, the strong weight of evidence against him and the “lengthy period of incarceration” that awaited him if convicted.
He pleaded guilty to one count of transporting child pornography on July 8, court filings show. The charge carried a maximum prison sentence of 20 years and up to $250,000 in fines.
Huizar’s defense attorney requested a five-year prison sentence.
In a sentencing memorandum filed in October, the attorney wrote Huizar had no prior criminal record and served in Iraq and Afghanistan before being dishonorably discharged as a result of his guilty plea “after over 18 years of honorable service to his country.”
“As a convicted felon, a convicted sex offender and a dishonorably discharged sailor, his job prospects are dim,” the memorandum states.
In return, prosecutors pushed for a prison sentence of 10 years, citing a “long history of inappropriate behavior toward minor girls” and “his willful persistence in possessing child erotica and child pornography up to the date of his arrest (when he knew it was coming).”
They said Huizar’s interactions with the 15-year-old girl in North Carolina were part of a pattern of “predatory behavior” that also involved minor girls in his family — including one who said he “crawled into bed” with her and “attempted to touch her sexually.”
“The connection between the defendant’s love of child pornography and his inclination to act out his fantasies on real underage girls could not be any clearer,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum. “That is why this defendant is deserving of a lengthier sentence than a defendant who only possesses child pornography.”
On Thursday, the judge opted for a sentence of just over nine years with 10 years of supervised release. Huizar will also be required to register as a sex offender after his release.
This story was originally published November 19, 2020 at 5:47 PM with the headline "Sailor used Instagram to ‘groom’ NC teen for sex while on assignment overseas, feds say."
