Date: 06-15-2015

Case Style: United States of America v. Steven Antepara

Case Number: 4:14-cr-00578-CKJ-BGM

Judge: Cindy K. Jorgenson

Court: United States District Court for the District of Arizona (Pima County)

Plaintiff's Attorney: Carmen F. Corbin

Defendant's Attorney: Jamiel Allen and Hugo Castorena Reyna

Description: TUCSON, AZ – Steven Antepara, 21, of New York, N.Y., was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Cindy K. Jorgenson to 18 years in prison. Antepara previously pleaded guilty to attempting to entice a minor. Antepara’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.

Antepara used an online chat service and instant messaging application to meet and communicate with a girl in Tucson who was eleven years old. Antepara coerced the child to take and send him sexually explicit images of herself. Antepara then threatened to post the child’s images on social media and networking sites if she failed to send him more sexually explicit photos and engage in sexually explicit video web chats over Skype with him. The defendant obtained sexually explicit images from other minor children in the same manner. He possessed over 900 images of child pornography and shared the images with others.

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 the Tucson Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Tucson.

Outcome: Man Sentenced To 18 Years in Prison for Sexually Extorting Eleven-Year-Old Girl over the Internet

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Defendant's Experts:

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