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MIAMI, FL – Jeffrey H. Sloman, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, Jonathan I. Solomon, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Miami Field Office, and Director Robert Parker, Miami-Dade Police Department, today announced that defendant Carlos Mauricio Abarca, 34, was charged with using a facility and means of interstate commerce to solicit someone he thought was a 13-year old girl for sex, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 2422(b). If convicted, Abarca faces a minimum of 10 years in prison and a maximum of a life sentence.

According to information contained within the criminal complaint, Abarca began conversing with an undercover investigator from the Florida Attorney General’s CyberCrime Unit in an internet chatroom, believing he was talking to a 13-year old girl from Orlando. Abarca began soliciting the "child" for sex and asking her to travel to Miami for a sexual encounter with him. He engaged in sexually graphic conversation with her, and provided a sexually graphic picture as well. He ultimately made arrangements for her to take a bus from Orlando to Miami and was waiting at the bus terminal for her arrival when he was arrested.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sivashree Sundaram.