Fort Worth man sentenced to 30 years for posing as teen to get nude images of girls
A 34-year-old Fort Worth man who posed as a teenage boy in order to solicit sexually explicit images from underage girls was sentenced on Thursday to 30 years in federal prison, a federal official said.
Matthew Ray Flores concocted an alias, 15-year-old “Ben Garcia,” which he used on various social media platforms to target 12- to 17-year-old girls, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas.
At his sentencing on Thursday, federal prosecutors revealed that this was a pattern Flores exhibited with at least seven victims over the course of two years.
U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Chad E. Meacham said in Friday’s news release that Flores was charged in January and pleaded guilty in February to sexual exploitation of a child and possession of child pornography. He was sentenced Thursday to 360 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Reed C. O’Connor.
Federal court documents indicated that Flores reached out to a 14-year-old girl online in November 2019 and arranged a visit to her home. Because her family was inside the house at the time, he climbed into her bedroom through a window. Shaken by his apparent age, the child asked him to leave.
In the days that followed, Flores demanded she send him sexually explicit images of herself. She initially sent him partially-clothed photos, but eventually complied and sent nude photos.
Flores later informed her that because he had “something to use against her,” she better let him back into her home, according to federal authorities.
For the next three months, Flores threatened to send the nude photos to friends and neighbors and sell them online to “rapists” if she did not send him additional photos.
He eventually showed up at her bedroom armed with a condom, but she told him “we aren’t having sex,” and pushed him back out the window, federal authorities said.
“I went through something no little girl my age should have gone through. I was vulnerable and lonely, which made me an easy target,” the victim testified at Thursday’s sentencing hearing, according to the news release. “I’ll never be the same as I was before. I hated myself for so long, feeling so confused and alone because of him… I can finally say this with the strength I have now: He has no power over me. I will not allow him to hold me back anymore.”
This story was originally published August 5, 2022 at 10:21 AM.
