Opinion ID: 3056610
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Plea Agreement and Factual Stipulation

Text: On January 3, 2011, Felix entered a guilty plea pursuant to a negotiated plea agreement with the government. Under the agreement’s terms, Felix agreed to plead guilty to Count 1 of the indictment, which the agreement listed on its first page as “Attempt to Produce Child Pornography, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 2251(a).” In exchange, the government agreed to dismiss Counts 2 and 3 of the indictment and to request a three-level reduction to Felix’s advisory sentencing guidelines range for his acceptance of responsibility. In the 3 Case: 11-11173 Date Filed: 11/20/2012 Page: 4 of 22 agreement, Felix acknowledged that Count 1 carried a 15-year mandatory minimum and a 30-year maximum term of imprisonment. Felix and the government concurrently executed and filed a factual stipulation in support of his guilty plea to the § 2251(a) attempt offense in Count 1. Felix personally signed the factual stipulation and so did his attorney and his interpreter. On its first page, the stipulation stated that, on or about January 14, 2010, Felix had attempt[ed] to use, persuade, induce, entice, and coerce a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing a visual depiction of such conduct, which visual depiction was intended to be transported in interstate commerce and was produced using materials that had been mailed, shipped, and transported in interstate commerce, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 2251(a). (emphasis added). Thus, the factual stipulation, signed by Felix, set forth all the elements of the Count 1 offense. The factual stipulation also contained the following factual details showing the elements of the § 2251(a) attempt offense were satisfied. On January 19, 2010, Detective Sheila LaGrega of the Port St. Lucie Police Department began an investigation of inappropriate text messages sent to a 15-year-old female, who was identified as “AB” with a date of birth of December 23, 1994. Defendant Felix was AB’s foster father at the time. AB advised Detective LaGrega that she had received sexually explicit text 4 Case: 11-11173 Date Filed: 11/20/2012 Page: 5 of 22 messages on her cell phone from a Yahoo! user named “tania_hot69.” AB also advised Detective LaGrega that she had been replying to the text messages, and that AB originally thought they were sent by her former friend named Tania. In December 2009, AB came to realize that the text messages were not from Tania, and she asked the “tania_hot69” user who he was. AB received a response from “tania_hot69” indicating that the user was Felix. Detective LaGrega reviewed the contents of AB’s cell phone. On the cell phone was a message sent on January 14, 2010 from “tania_hot69.” The message contained a picture of Felix holding his penis. A message sent from “tania_hot69” to AB four minutes later said “let me see u pussy,” and a third message, sent shortly after the second, said “Id like to see u pussy.” Detective LaGrega believed that these messages were requests from Felix to AB to take a photo of her vagina and send the photo to Felix. A later forensic examination of AB’s cell phone revealed, in addition to the messages and photo previously discussed, photos of AB taking a picture of herself in a mirror while exposing her vagina. Detective LaGrega interviewed Felix, who admitted that he created the “tania_hot69” Yahoo! username and sent text messages to AB using that username. He also admitted sending a picture of his penis to AB. As to interstate commerce, Felix acknowledged that the text messages he sent to AB were relayed 5 Case: 11-11173 Date Filed: 11/20/2012 Page: 6 of 22 through servers located in California, and that his and AB’s cell phones were manufactured in foreign countries.