Federal monitor raped a woman on house arrest

He didn’t count on what she saved

A Miami woman serving part of her federal prison sentence on house arrest didn’t have any choice when the man assigned to monitor her for the Federal Bureau of Prisons wanted sexual favors. As court documents stated, she was under Benito Montes de Oca Cruz’s “custodial, supervisory and disciplinary authority.”

So, she submitted to Cruz’s wishes. But, she also told law enforcement what happened and provided evidence. When law enforcement went to the video and DNA she brought them, Cruz was exposed.

Cruz pleaded guilty in Miami federal court to one count of abusive sexual contact. He’s scheduled to be sentenced April 14.

On Dec. 28, 2020, Cruz worked as a site supervisor for Riverside House, which was contracted to do home confinement supervision for the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The woman was spending the last five months of her four-year, three-month sentence on house arrest.

Cruz’s guilty plea said as the site supervisor assigned to visit the woman’s home, “to determine her compliance with the terms of her home confinement,” she “was under the custodial, supervisory and disciplinary authority of [Cruz].”

During the Dec. 28, 2020 supervision visit, Cruz’s admission says, he touched her breasts, genitals and buttocks, made her get naked, then got on top of her. He made her masturbate him.

When investigators spoke with the woman, she told them what happened. She also provided the result of the masturbation for DNA testing and “two short videos.”

As for the DNA, the results said the same was 16 octillion (16,000,000,0 00,000,000,000,000,00 0,000) times more likely if [Cruz] is a contributor than if an unknown, unrelated person is a contributor.”

The video confirmed the woman’s story. Cruz confessed to being the man in the videos.

This case was investigated by the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward N. Stamm.