FORT SMITH – A Berryville man was sentenced yesterday to 75 months in prison followed by five years of supervised release on one count of Receipt of Child Pornography. The Honorable Judge P.K. Holmes, III presided over the sentencing hearing in the U.S. District Court in Fort Smith.
According to court documents, in January of 2022, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Fayetteville, received a Cyber Tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children which reported that an unknown person was utilizing an account on the Kik Messenger application to upload media files including child pornography. An investigation into the IP addresses and the Kik account information revealed the account owner to be Andrew Cruz Tovar-Reyes, age 20, of Berryville, Arkansas. Tovar-Reyes admitted to receiving child pornography using his Kik account through his cellphone. Berryville Police Department arrested Tovar-Reyes on February 15, 2022.
Tovar-Reyes was indicted by a Grand Jury in April 2022 and pled guilty in June 2022.
U.S. Attorney David Clay Fowlkes of the Western District of Arkansas made the announcement.
Homeland Security Investigations Fayetteville, the Northwest Arkansas Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force and the Berryville Police Department investigated the case.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Carly Marshall and Kyra Jenner prosecuted the case.
This case was prosecuted as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.