Man gets 8 years for child sex exploitation

A Rio Rancho man was sentenced this week to eight years in prison after being convicted in a federal child sexual exploitation case, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Joe Medina’s prison sentence will be followed by 15 years of supervised release and he will be required to register as a sex offender.

Medina, 38, who was indicted on Aug. 11, 2015, pleaded guilty to a felony information charging him with coercion and enticement on Nov. 7 last year.

“In entering the guilty plea, Medina admitted that from July 9, 2015, through July 12, 2015, he enticed the 16-year-old victim to leave Sandoval County ... with the intent to travel to New York, where Medina intended to engage in illegal sexual activity,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release.

According to the release, Medina was arrested in Indianapolis, Ind., on July 20, 2015, on a federal arrest warrant based on a criminal complaint filed by the FBI in U.S. District Court. The criminal complaint said that earlier that month the victim’s mother had filed a missing person’s report with Rio Rancho police. RRPD’s investigation showed Medina took the victim to Denver, Colo., where they boarded a bus. On July 12, 2015, Medina was arrested on a New Mexico warrant when he and the victim were found on a bus that had stopped in Indianapolis.

Medina’s sentence was announced Monday by Acting U.S. Attorney James D. Tierney, Special Agent in Charge Terry Wade of the FBI’s Albuquerque Division, and Acting Police Chief Paul Rogers of the Rio Rancho Police Department.

The case was prosecuted as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, the news release states.