Former Los Lunas High School Coach Sentenced to 23 Years for Coercion and Enticement and Production of Child Pornography

ALBUQUERQUE – Alexander M.M. Uballez, United States Attorney for the District of New Mexico, and Raul Bujanda, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Albuquerque Field Office, announced today that Johnathon Bindues was sentenced to 23 years in prison.  A federal jury convicted Bindues, 32, of Los Lunas, on May 4, 2023, of coercion and enticement of a minor and production of child pornography.

According to the evidence at trial and other publicly available court records, Bindues used his former position at Los Lunas High School as the coach for the girls’ basketball and track teams to gain special access to minor females. The victim, identified as Jane Doe, was a freshman and a member of the teams Bindues coached. Between September 2020 and June 2021, Bindues exchanged over 17,000 text messages with the victim. Bindues requested nude images of Jane Doe, sent her explicit images of himself, and repeatedly encouraged her to delete text messages. After discovering sexually explicit messages on her daughter’s phone, Jane Doe’s mother reported the relationship to the New Mexico State Police.

Upon his release from prison, Bindues will be subject to 10 years of supervised release and must register as a sex offender.

The FBI and New Mexico State Police investigated this case. Assistant United States Attorneys Jaymie L. Roybal and Patrick E. Cordova are prosecuting the case as part of Project Safe Childhood (PSC), 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/.

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