Carlos Manuel Marquez-Pierce, age 23, of Plummer, Idaho, and an enrolled member of the Coeur d’Alene Indian Tribe, was sentenced today after having pleaded guilty in two cases, first on January 25, 2021, to the production of child pornography, and second on February 25, 2021, to sexual abuse of a minor.
United States District Judge Wm. Fremming Nielsen sentenced Marquez-Pierce to a 23-year term of imprisonment, to be followed by a life term of court supervision after he is released from federal prison.
According to information disclosed during court proceedings, Marquez-Pierce committed sexual offenses against three minor victims, ages 11 and 12, over nearly two years. Marquez-Pierce recorded sexually explicit conduct with one of his victims and distributed some of the produced images to others. One of Marquez-Pierce’s victims was an enrolled member of the Coeur d’ Alene Indian Tribe.
Acting United States Attorney Harrington said, “With the sentence imposed today, a dangerous child predator has been removed from the community. The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Washington is committed to prosecuting anyone who may sexually exploit our most vulnerable population, children. I commend the hard work of our federal, state, local and Tribal law enforcement partners who investigated this case.”
This case was pursued as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the United States 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. The Project Safe Childhood Initiative (“PSC”) has five major components:
