An O’ahu man was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in federal prison for using the Internet to entice a 13-year-old Kaua’i girl to engage in prohibited sexual activity with him in a Kapa’a hotel room. Michael S. Cabrera, 34, met
An O’ahu man was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in federal prison for using the Internet to entice a 13-year-old Kaua’i girl to engage in prohibited sexual activity with him in a Kapa’a hotel room.
Michael S. Cabrera, 34, met the girl via an Internet chat room in April, according to court documents presented in the federal case, which was handled by Assistant United States Attorney Larry Tong, Judge Susan O. Molloway presiding.
In addition to the 80 months, Cabrera was also ordered to pay $642 in restitution to the girl, and be under supervised release for three years. He must also register as a sex offender in any community in which he resides.
Cabrera admitted in court that he used the Internet to entice the girl into consenting to him videotaping sexual conduct. Through the chat room, he and the girl agreed to meet at a hotel on Kaua’i on May 15, 2002. They engaged in sexual relations, which Cabrera videotaped.
The Kaua’i Police Department was investigating a truancy case against the girl and upon going to her house, they found she went to a Waipouli hotel the day before to have sex with a guy named “Mike,” according to her sister. The sister told police the girl had sex with him six times on May 15 and showed a “hickey,” according to U.S. Custom’s Service Agent Richard Bratt’s sworn affidavit, attached to the criminal complaint.
According to the complaint, on May 16, 2002, Kaua’i Police detectives seized an 8mm video camera and videocassettes depicting Cabrera and the girl in sexual acts in the hotel room.
During sentencing, the government presented evidence that Cabrera had other sexually explicit Internet chat conversations with underage girls.
U.S. Attorney Ed Kubo said that Cabrera was the fourth man in the past three weeks in Hawaii to be sentenced or to plead guilty to offenses involving Internet child exploitation.
On Dec. 30, 2002, Ryan Ching was sentenced to 50 months for making child pornography available from his home via a computer file server. Retired postal carrier Darryl Yanezawa was sentenced to six months for possession of computer diskettes containing child pornography. On Jan. 10, former Army serviceman Michael Wilkinson pleaded guilty to downloading child pornography using his work computer at Schofield Barracks and to possessing such images at home and at work.
The cases illustrate the breadth and seriousness of the sex-related criminal activity occurring over the Internet involving minors, Kubo said.
