A man from Honduras who raped a 13-year-old girl he met online in Virginia and then assaulted an immigration officer attempting to arrest him has been sentenced to prison, federal prosecutors announced on Monday.
Jhoan Esau Lemus-Ramos, 23, was sentenced to five years for receiving child sexual abuse material and assaulting a federal officer.
ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) unit said that Lemus-Ramos raped his victim after she refused his advances, before pressuring her to send him nude photos.
When immigrations officers showed up at his home in January, Lemus-Ramos hit one of them in the face.
The Honduran national entered the U.S. in 2021 and started messaging the girl online in February 2022.
A month later, he met her in a parking lot in Herndon, Virginia, where he made repeated sexual advances that she tried to resist.
Lemus-Ramos raped the 13-year-old sometime in 2022, according to prosecutors.
Over the course of the next few months, until around August 2022, he repeatedly asked the victim for nude or semi-nude photos, which she eventually sent from her phone.
When the girl told Lemus-Ramos she wanted to stop, he threatened her with the photos, using them to try to get her to have sex with him again.
The victim contacted Herndon police for help and officers examined the messages between her and the suspect, leading ICE officials to his home on Jan. 4.
It was then that Lemus-Ramos struck an officer in the face, which left them with an injury requiring stitches.
The Honduran received a five year sentence at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on June 27.
"Jhoan Esau Lemus-Ramos represented a significant threat to the children of our Virginia communities," ERO Washington, D.C. Field Office Director Liana Castano said in a press release. "He not only traumatized his young victim by forcing himself on her; he also harassed her into sending him compromising images of her.
"Upon his apprehension, Lemus Ramos assaulted one of our officers. ERO Washington, D.C. will continue to prioritize public safety by apprehending and removing the most egregious noncitizen offenders from our neighborhoods."
ICE said the case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, created by the Department of Justice to tackle child sexual exploitation across the country.
In the previous fiscal year, the department arrested 73,822 non-citizens with criminal histories, with around four charges per individual. 4,390 of those were for sexual assaults.
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About the writer
Dan Gooding is a Newsweek reporter based in New York City. His focus is reporting on immigration and border security. ... Read more