A man accused of enticing young girls to send him sexually explicit photos throughout 2020 will remain jailed pending trial.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Peter E. Ormsby issued the order during a Tuesday afternoon court hearing for Walberto Gutierrez Jr., who is charged with coercion and enticement of a minor, court records show.
The Homeland Security Investigations-led Rio Grande Valley Child Exploitation Investigation Task Force arrested Gutierrez on Dec. 17 and allege he coerced and enticed minors from Jan. 1 to Dec. 13.
A federal complaint against the man says the task force flagged two IP addresses on Oct. 1 during an online investigation that were sharing child pornography.
Special agents determined one of those IP addresses downloaded and made available for share videos that were indicative of child pornography on Aug. 18, 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24 in 2019, according to the complaint, which states that investigators tracked the IP address to a residence in Hidalgo County.
On Dec. 15, at 6 a.m., the task force executed a search warrant at the residence where agents contacted Gutierrez, who was born in 1988.
Federal authorities say Gutierrez agreed to accompany agents to the HSI McAllen office for an interview.
In a post-Miranda interview, HSI says Gutierrez admitted to downloading and possessing several images of child pornography on his cellphone, but claimed no knowledge of BitTorrent or Peer-to-Peer file sharing, the complaint states.
HSI says agents transferred Gutierrez back to his residence, but kept his cellphone for forensic analysis.
On Dec. 17, HSI says Gutierrez traveled to the agency’s Harlingen office for a voluntary re-interview.
“In a post-Miranda interview, Gutierrez Jr. admitted to enticing for the purposes of receiving explicit images, approximately three (3) minor female children ranging from 9 to 11 years of age. Gutierrez further stated that over the last year, he had enticed approximately ten (10) minor female children for the purposes of receiving explicit images,” the complaint states.
Federal agents last say he communicated with a young girl on Dec. 13.
