Previously Deported Man Pleads Guilty to Child Exploitation Crimes and Illegal Reentry

Miami, Florida – A 29-year-old Mexican national living in South Florida who pretended to be a nine-year-old girl during on-line chats and solicited minors to produce child sexual abuse material pled guilty today in federal district court in West Palm Beach to committing child exploitation crimes and being in the United States illegally following deportation.

Andres Rivera Reyes, who has lived both in Boca Raton and Pompano Beach, Florida, admitted that over the past two years, he posed as a nine-year-old girl on social media to try to obtain child sexual abuse material from girls in the United States as young as eight. Rivera Reyes used social media networking platforms to share and receive child sexual abuse material and kept videos on his cellular phone of children under 12 engaged in sexually explicit acts. Rivera Reyes also admitted that he is in the United States illegally and that the United States had previously deported him twice.  

Rivera Reyes pled guilty to one count of attempted production of child pornography, two counts of receipt of child pornography, one count of distribution of child pornography, and one count of possession of child pornography. U.S. District Judge Robin L. Rosenberg, who sits in West Palm Beach, will sentence Rivera Reyes on October 20, at 11:00 a.m. Rivera Reyes faces up to 112 years’ imprisonment.

Juan Antonio Gonzalez, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and George Piro, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI ), Miami Field Office, announced the guilty plea.

FBI Miami investigated the case. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Miami Field Office, assisted. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Schiller is prosecuting this case. 

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 U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (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.projectsafechildhood.gov.

Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at www.flsd.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov under case number 21-cr-80064.

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