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Press Release

Navajo, N.M., Man Sentenced to Federal Prison for Child Sex Abuse Conviction

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, District of New Mexico

ALBUQUERQUE – Cornallsen Cortez, 32, an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation who resides in Navajo, N.M., was sentenced today to 63 months in federal prison followed by five years of supervised release for his abusive sexual contact conviction.  Cortez will be required to register as a sex offender when he completes his prison sentence. 

Cortez was arrested in March 2013, based on a criminal complaint alleging that he sexually abused a 12-year-old child in Nov. 2012, in a residence located on the Navajo Indian Reservation.  Cortez pled guilty on Jan. 16, 2014, to a felony information charging him with abusive sexual contact with a minor.  In entering his guilty plea, Cortez admitted that on Nov. 28, 2012, he sexually abused a 12-year-old child by touching the child inappropriately.

This case was investigated by the Albuquerque and Gallup offices of the FBI and the Window Rock, Ariz., office of the Navajo Nation Division of Public Safety, and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer M. Rozzoni.

The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.  Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and DOJ’s Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, 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 http://www.justice.gov/psc/.

Updated January 26, 2015