Jury Convicts Muleshoe Man of Production of Child Pornography
25-year-old Felipe Mata-Benavidez of Muleshoe has been convicted by a federal jury of production of child pornography after deliberating for 40 minutes.
It was alleged that Mata-Benavidez (whose mugshot has not been provided) attempted to sexually assault a girl that was only 11-years-old in her own home. KAMC News reports that the girl's mother walked in on Mata-Benavidez attempting to have sex with the girl, stopped him and fled with her daughter. A neighbor even notified police after they heard about what happened.
After the incident was reported to police, they located Mata-Benavidez and interviewed him. During the interview, Mata-Benavidez gave Muleshoe Police Officers his phone when they requested it. On the phone, officers found messages between him and the girl. Those messages showed Mata-Benavidez trying to get the girl to send sexually explicit pictures of herself, and when she refused, it's said he "bullied" her into doing it. What specifically he did to coerce the girl into sending the images wasn't made clear by news releases.
Mata-Benavidez told the girl not to share the images with anyone else. He gave the reason of "because it's mine." It's said he then requested that the girl send him images that would be even more sexually explicit.
Mata-Benavidez' sentencing will happen on July 8th of 2021. He faces up to 30 years in federal prison.
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