Iowa man who traveled to Mexico to engage in sex acts with child sent to prison for 20 years

CEDAR RAPIDS – An Iowa man who traveled to Mexico and engaged in illicit sexual conduct with a minor and distributed child pornography was sentenced yesterday to 20 years in federal prison.

Juan Rangel, age 36, from Waterloo, Iowa, received the sentence after a December 27, 2017 guilty plea to one count of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place and one count of distribution of child pornography. At the plea hearing, Rangel admitted that, between 2014 and 2016, he traveled from the United States to Mexico and engaged in sex acts with a minor. He also admitted that he distributed visual depictions of child pornography using the Internet.

Rangel was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge Leonard T. Strand. Rangel was sentenced to 240 months’ imprisonment. A special assessment of $10,200 was imposed, and Rangel must also serve a 7-year term of supervised release. He must comply with all sex offender registration and public notification requirements.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Mark Tremmel and was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, the Waterloo Police Department, and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.

This case was brought 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. Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims.