Douglas Man Sentenced to 60 Years in Prison for Production and Distribution

     TUCSON, Ariz. – Yesterday, Josue Eduardo Cota, 33, of Douglas, Ariz., was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Rosemary Marquez to serve 720 months in prison.  Cota’s term of imprisonment will be followed by lifetime supervised release, with stringent sex offender conditions, including the condition that he register as a sex offender, if he is released from prison.

     In February of 2017, Homeland Security Investigations discovered videos showing sexual abuse of pre-pubescent children while reviewing evidence from a child exploitation case in Canada.  Agents tracked the distribution of the videos to a person in Douglas, Ariz., and determined that Cota, a former corrections officer in Douglas, had been producing sexually explicit videos of multiple children and distributing them online.  On Nov. 30, 2017, Cota pleaded guilty to eight counts of production of child pornography.  Cota’s sentence, was aggravated by the facts that he sexually abused very young children and had engaged in a pattern of sexual exploitation of minors, which he shared with others through distribution of the videos.

     This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, 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 United States Attorneys’ 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 exploit children via the internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

     The investigation in this case was conducted by Homeland Security Investigations, Douglas Office. The prosecution was handled by Carin C. Duryee, District of Arizona, Tucson.

CASE NUMBER:          CR-17-0685-TUC-RM   

RELEASE NUMBER:    2019-013_Cota

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For more information on the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Arizona, visit http://www.justice.gov/usao/az/

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