Man Sentenced To 72 Months In Federal Prison For Failing To Register As A Sex Offender

WICHITA FALLS, Texas — Viviano Nuncio, an Oklahoma man, who was arrested in Wichita Falls, Texas, last year for failing to register as a sex offender, was sentenced on Monday by U.S. District Judge Reed C. O’Connor to 72 months in federal prison, announced Acting U.S. Attorney John Parker of the Northern District of Texas.

Viviano Nuncio, 50, was arrested on July 30, 2014, and he pleaded guilty in November 2014 to one count of failure to register as a sex offender. The 72-month sentence was an upward departure from the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines.

According to documents filed in the case, Nuncio was convicted in Tillman County, Oklahoma, in December 2005 for lewd molestation, and he was sentenced to 15 years in the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, with all but the first eight years suspended. As a result of this conviction, Nuncio was advised of his requirement to register as a sex offender by the sentencing judge. Nuncio registered as a sex offender upon his release from prison on March 28, 2012. The last time he registered, however, was on September 10, 2013, in Garfield County, Oklahoma.

Nuncio admitted he had moved in with his sister in Wichita Falls the day before Thanksgiving, November 27, 2013. When he was arrested, he admitted he knew he had a duty to register in Texas, but stated that he did not because he was afraid of getting arrested.

The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative, which was launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice, to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorney’s Offices and the 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 sexually exploit children, and identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/. For more information about Internet safety education, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/ and click on the tab “resources.”

The U.S. Marshals Service investigated. Assistant U.S. Attorney Camille Sparks prosecuted.