News Releases and Statements

Joseph Rajkumar, 44, formerly of Farmington, pleaded guilty Nov. 18, 2013 in Hartford federal court to one count of attempted receipt of child pornography. The charge stems from Rajkumar‘s sexual relationship with a student while he was a teacher at Miss Porter’s School in Farmington.

Jesus Javier Garza Jr., 30, of Mission, Texas, was arrested and charged Feb. 27, 2014 for receiving child pornography. During the hearing March 3, Garza admitted he was the mariachi director at La Joya High School.

Todd Fleming, from McKinney, Texas, pleaded guilty Oct. 2, 2014 to sexually exploiting children and was sentenced March 3 to 240 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Michael H. Schneider. Fleming will be required to register as a sex offender and serve a life term of supervised release upon his release from federal prison.

On Friday, HSI special agents arrested Naara Elisa Cruz-Vilar, 28, of San Juan, for transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual conduct. According to the criminal complaint, Cruz-Vilar, a special education teacher at a local school, transported a 15-year-old minor student to her residence with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct with him.

As part of Project iGuardian, HSI special agents in St. Thomas organized the largest Internet safety outreach in the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) for 8- to 16-year-old kids to provide them with the necessary tools to make smart decisions when navigating the Internet. The event was part of the 2015 USVI Youth Summit sponsored by the USVI Police Department and the local Department of Education.

Terry Lee Clark, 48, was sentenced Feb. 26 to eight years, one month in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Marina Garcia Marmolejo. Clark’s prison sentence will be immediately followed by a life term of supervised release and registration as a sex offender. Clark pleaded guilty Oct. 31, 2014.

“This case illustrates HSI’s unyielding commitment in working with our world-wide law enforcement partners to protect our children,” said Peter T. Edge, HSI executive associate director. “When it comes to protecting the most vulnerable among us, we will leave no stone unturned.”

According to court documents, on Nov. 15, 2013, law enforcement agents executed a federal search warrant at the residence of John Dewey Todd, 61, of Fernandina Beach, during which they recovered several electronic devices. In an interview with agents, Todd admitted to having child pornography on his computers.

Jason Ryan Bickham, 32, from Orange, Texas, was sentenced to 120 months in federal prison Feb. 24 by U.S. District Judge Thad Heartfield. Bickham pleaded guilty to the charges Sept. 17, 2014 after being indicted by a federal grand jury June 4.

Anthony Arn, 44, of Coralville, Iowa, was sentenced to 45 months in prison on one count of possessing child pornography.

Joel D. Hilton, 42, of Muncie, Indiana, was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison for producing and distributing child pornography. Hilton was arrested less than six hours after authorities learned of his identity, saving many more potential victims. Federal sentencing guidelines allow for stiffer penalties for crimes involving children younger than 14.

Richard Dinizo, 60, of Cortlandt Manor, New York, videotaped the sexual abuse and transported the videos depicting him engaging in sexual activity with minors to recipients outside of New York. Dinizo plead guilty in May 2014 before United States District Judge Vincent Briccetti, who also imposed Tuesday's sentence at White Plains federal court.

Randy Ray Wesson, 29, of Hurst, Texas pleaded guilty Feb. 18 to possessing and receiving child pornography. He faces a maximum statutory sentence on the possession charge of 20 years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine and a lifetime of supervised release.

John “Johnny” Anthony Sassine, 53, was sentenced Feb. 17 to 78 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Ron Clark. He pleaded guilty to the charge Nov. 4.

Those charged so far in the ongoing investigation are John David Yoder, 43, a former teacher’s aide for the Palm Springs Unified School District; Erick Alan Monsivais, 29, of Los Angeles; and William Clyde Thompson, 54, of Las Vegas. The men are named in a five-count federal indictment filed in the District of Nevada last week and in three separate criminal complaints filed by the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office.

Dustin Coleman, 22, of Wahpeton, North Dakota, was sentenced to 384 months in prison on three counts of producing child pornography, two counts of extorting sexually explicit images and videos from a child by threat of injury and damage to reputation, and three counts of possessing child pornography. "Sextortion" involves the coercion of an individual to commit sexually explicit acts.

Ronald Carey Shirley, 64, was taken into custody at Los Angeles International Airport as he boarded a Philippines Air flight. The former accountant is charged in a criminal complaint with attempting to produce and attempting to receive child pornography. The charges stem from online communications of a sexual nature the defendant had with underage females in the Philippines and Vietnam, including some messages in which he allegedly solicited sexually explicit images of the victims.

Dubbed “Operation Roundtable,” the case against Johnson has thus far resulted in ten additional individuals being criminally charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Orleans. To date, all ten defendants have pleaded guilty to crimes involving the sexual exploitation of children.

U.S. District Judge Sam R. Cummings ordered Christopher Wayne Howard, 26, of Joshua, Texas, to surrender to the Federal Bureau of Prisons to commence his sentence on March 20.

Kieron Mann, 45, was also ordered to serve a lifetime of supervised release, to continue to register as a sex offender and to pay $50,000 as restitution to his victims.

Joel Aguirre-Lara, 35, of Greenville, Texas, was convicted Oct. 15, 2014, of transporting a minor to engage in sexual activity and aggravated sexual abuse of a child under 12 years of age.

Fidel Perales-Castillo, 43, of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, was arrested and charged Feb. 11 with possessing child pornography.

Larry Richie Fields, 45, of Wingate, Texas, has been in federal custody since his arrest in January on related charges. He faces a maximum statutory penalty of not less than five years and up to 20 years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine, and a lifetime of supervised release.

According to court documents, Donald W. Lamoureaux, 68, of Ash Flat, was arrested following an undercover investigation in which Fort Smith officers posed in an Internet chat room as a mother offering her 4-year-old daughter for sex.

On Feb. 6, HSI special agents arrested Irian Jesus Pagan-Rivera, 18, of Dorado, following an investigation that revealed he used Grindr, a location-based networking smartphone application, to send sexually explicit images of prepubescent minors to another user of the application.