Southern District of Florida | St. Lucie County Man Sentenced to 20 Years in Federal Prison for Producing Child Pornography

MIAMI—A St. Lucie County man was sentenced today to 240 months in federal prison for producing visual depictions of sexual exploitation of a minor after pleading guilty in May 2024.

Between November 2022 and January 2023, Luis Escoto, 28, of Port St. Lucie, had sexual intercourse with a 17-year-old when he was approximately 26 or 27 years old in St. Lucie and Martin counties. Escoto recorded the sexual interactions with the minor victim on his cell phone and convinced the victim to send him sexually explicit images via text messages and communication platforms. In February 2023, detectives with the Martin County Sheriff’s Office arrested Escoto when he showed up, thinking he was going to have sex, after texting an undercover detective posing as the minor.

U.S. District Judge David S. Liebowitz, sitting in Fort Pierce, sentenced Escoto to prison, followed by 15 years of probation.

U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe for the Southern District of Florida, Special Agent in Charge Anthony Salisbury of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Miami, and Sheriff William D. Snyder of the Martin County Sheriff’s Office announced the sentence.

HSI Fort Pierce and the Martin County Sheriff’s Office investigated the case. Managing Assistant U.S. Attorney Carmen Lineberger prosecuted it.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood (PSC), a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the U.S. Attorney’s Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Abuse and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to investigate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about the Project Safe Childhood initiative and for information about Internet safety, visit www.justice.gov/psc.

Related court documents and information can be found on the website of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida at www.flsd.uscourts.gov or at http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov under case number 23-cr-14024.

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