New York Man Sentenced to 10 Years for Transporting Minor to Engage in Sexual Activity

Acting United States Attorney Steven Russell announced that Armando Daniels, 33, of New York, was sentenced in federal court today in Omaha, Nebraska, for transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.  United States District Judge Brian C. Buescher sentenced Daniels to 10 years of imprisonment.  There is no parole in the federal system.  After completing his term of imprisonment, Daniels will begin a 5-year term of supervised release. 

Between January and April of 2021, Daniels (32 years old at the time) communicated with a 15-year-old female (“Victim”) from Sarpy County, Nebraska, via cellular phone and internet applications including Discord.  In April of 2021, Daniels drove from his home in New York to pick up Victim and take her to New York.  On the evening of April 6, 2021, Daniels arrived in Nebraska, picked up Victim, and began driving her to New York.  Victim left her cell phone at home in Nebraska.  That evening, when Victim’s family became aware she was missing, they called authorities and Sarpy County Sheriff’s Office instantly began trying to find her.

Using call records associated with Victim, deputies obtained cell phone location data of phones that had recently been in contact with Victim.  Located data showed the phones traveling east across Iowa and Illinois.  Location data showed that on the evening of April 7, 2021, the phones were in Princeton, Illinois.  The investigation later revealed that Daniels sexually assaulted Victim at a hotel in Princeton, Illinois.  Surveillance footage from the hotel showed Daniels and Victim together at the hotel.  

At about 4 a.m. on April 8, 2021, Indiana State troopers located Daniels and Victim in Elkhart, Indiana.  Daniels and Victim were parked in Daniels’s car.  Indiana State troopers arrested Daniels. 

This case was investigated by the Sarpy County Sheriff’s Office, the Indiana State Police, the Suffolk County, New York Police Department, and Federal Bureau of Investigation, and 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 U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and CEOS, 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.justice.gov/psc.