PUBLIC SAFETY BRIEFS
Human remains found in desert
The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office is investigating after human remains were found in north Phoenix on Friday.
A spokesman for the department said the remains were found in a desert area near 11th Street and Alameda Road at about 7:30 p.m.
Officials declined to provide any additional information.
Man sentenced for child porn
A Peoria man was sentenced to 14 years in prison after posing as a female on a messaging application to obtain child pornography, Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced Thursday.
Homeland Security investigators determined in 2017 that Reynaldo Granado was seeking child pornography under the user name “SluttyIvy.”
Officials searched Granado’s home under a warrant and found an electronic tablet that contained pornographic images and videos of children, the Attorney General’s Office reported.
Granado told agents he used the name “SluttyIvy” to pretend to be a female having sexual contact with children to solicit images from other application users, the media release said.
Granado entered a plea agreement to one count of sexual exploitation of a minor and one count of attempted sexual exploitation of a minor in June, the Attorney General’s Office reported.
He will be held by the Arizona Department of Corrections and placed on lifetime probation after he is released.
2 sentenced for drug trafficking
Two Tucson men were sentenced to prison by a judge for participating in a drug and firearms trafficking ring, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said Friday.
A jury found Juan Manuel Islas and Gilberto Saul Jaramillo guilty of multiple counts of heroin trafficking, money laundering, conspiracy and illegally conducting an enterprise, the Attorney General’s Office said.
Islas was sentenced to 10.5 years in prison and Jaramillo to six years, the office’s release said. Islas’ sentence was the longest of the seven people convicted in the ring since 2016.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives began investigating in May 2015.
Agents began by purchasing firearms from Thomas Baile, a defendant who had previous felony convictions, the Attorney General’s Office said. The agents later uncovered more people dealing methamphetamine and heroin in Tucson, the Attorney General’s Office said.
Over the next several months, ATF agents purchased heroin from Islas and three other defendants and discovered Islas got the heroin from Jaramillo, who owned and operated a Boost Mobile store, the Attorney General’s Office said.
Islas and Jaramillo are the last of the seven defendants in the trafficking organization to be sentenced, the Attorney General’s Office said. The others were Bartolo De Jesus Reyes Valenzuela, Arnoldo Alonso, Thomas Baile, Steven Calkins and Mike Taylor, the Attorney General’s Office said.
Refugees accused of lying to feds
A Tucson couple who had obtained refugee status were arrested Friday on charges of falsifying information on an application for permanent residency, including a question that asked about ties to known members of terrorist groups.
The couple, Mohamed Abdirahman Osman, 28, and Zeinab Abdirahman Mohamed, 25, were both living in Tucson at the time of their arrest Friday.
On Wednesday, they were indicted on 11 federal criminal counts involving “violations of false swearing in an immigration matter and false statements to a government agency,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Strange in a press release.
Osman was found to have used a false name and nationality on his application for permanent residency, Strange said. In addition, he falsely denied any association with members of a terrorist organization, Strange said.
While living in China, the couple applied for and were granted refugee status in 2014 and entered the United States, living in Tucson since, Strange said. In June 2015, Osman and Mohamed submitted applications for Legal Permanent Residence Status to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Strange said.
According to the indictment filed against the couple, the “material submitted in support of their refugee applications and their applications for Legal Permanent Residence Status contained false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements,” Strange said.