ALBUQUERQUE – Michael Bow Smith, 32, an enrolled member of the Mescalero Apache Nation who resides in Mescalero, N.M., was sentenced today in federal court in Las Cruces, N.M., to 46 months in prison followed by five years of supervised release for sexually abusing a minor. Smith will also be required to register as a sex offender when he completes his prison sentence.
Smith was arrested on May 7, 2016, on a criminal complaint charging him with sexually abusing a minor in Otero County, N.M., on March 8, 2016.
On Aug. 29, 2016, Smith pled guilty to a felony information charging him with sexually abusing a minor. In entering the guilty plea, Smith admitted that he was 30 years old when he engaged in a sexual act with the victim who was 15 years old at the time. Smith further admitted that the abuse took place on the Mescalero Apache reservation in Otero County.
This case was investigated by the Mescalero Agency of the BIA’s Office of Justice Services. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Aaron O. Jordan of the U.S. Attorney’s Las Cruces Branch Office as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and DOJ’s Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, 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 http://www.justice.gov/psc/.