Man posed as teen before taking 15-year-old girl from SLO County to Mexico, affidavit says
Editor’s Note: This story contains details about alleged grooming and sexual exploitation that may be troubling for some readers.
Two people are accused of taking a 15-year-old girl from San Luis Obispo County and bringing her to Mexico, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Victorville resident Daniel Navarro, 38, and Julie Le, 20, of Garden Grove, face federal charges of transporting a minor to engage in criminal sexual activity, the agency said in a news release. They’re scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday.
If convicted, Navarro and Le face a minimum sentence of 10 years in federal prison, with a possible sentence of life without parole, the DOJ wrote in an email.
Le and Navarro reportedly drove from Nipomo to Tijuana with the teenage girl hidden in the backseat on July 1, the night before the teen’s quinceañera, the release said.
Le and Navarro were arrested as they entered the United States on Sunday evening, 10 days after they had allegedly brought the girl into Mexico, the release said.
The DOJ identified the girl by the initials A.T.
The 15-year-old Phoenix, Arizona, girl went missing July 1 while visiting family in Nipomo, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office confirmed. Family members said that the girl was found in Mexico on Monday.
The teen has since been reunited with family members, the Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
The Tribune does not name alleged victims of sex crimes.
FBI: Man posed as 15-year-old boy online
According to an affidavit written by FBI Special Agent Brian J. Sullivan in support of the criminal complaint, Navarro had been posing as a 15-year-old boy named Angel on Instagram for the past year on at least three Instagram accounts.
Navarro had used one of those accounts to begin communicating with the teen girl he allegedly took to Mexico in February, the affidavait said.
The two would “profess their love” for one another and call each other “baby,” according to the affadavit. They also engaged in sexually explicit conversations, Sullivan wrote, including one in which Navarro talked having sex with the intent of impregnating the girl.
The two had made plans about running away together, but on the evening of the girl’s disappearance, she tried backed out of the arrangement, the document shows.
“Baby I’m sorry but I can’t I’m not ready,” the teen wrote in a message, according to the court document. “I can’t do that to them I’m sorry.”
“You made me promises. Remember to leave with me,” Navarro allegedly messaged the girl just before she left her step-grandmother’s house, telling her to remember about their plan to “make a baby.”
“Juju is upset and can’t believe we drove all this way to hear your excuses.”
According to the affidavit, Juju refers to Le.
The girl told him she wouldn’t break her promise, the affidavit said, and presumably got into the car with him.
Le later told investigators she and Navarro developed an online relationship with the girl over social media and had learned the girl was not happy in her home environment, so they picked the girl up and drove her to Mexico, the affidavit said.
A review of one of Navarro’s other Instagram accounts show him not only again professing his love to the girl, but also talking to other teenage girls 14 to 15 years old, the affidavit said.
Navarro told one teen via Instagram that he wanted her to have his baby, sent a photo of a penis to another and requested nude photographs from multiple 14-year-old and 15-year-old girls, the document says.
According to the affidavit, Le and Navarro would exchange screen shots of social media profiles “associated with apparent underage females” on Instagram. Navarro would allegedly instruct Le to message the underage girls telling them that he was a friend.
Border crossing records show Le and Navarro crossed the United States-Mexico border together several times in 2022.
Suspects allegedly took girl from SLO County to Mexico
After being granted a search warrant, law enforcement personnel used GPS location data and found both Navarro and Le had been in the Nipomo area near where the girl was staying at the time she disappeared, the affidavit said.
Phone records show Navarro and Le left the Nipomo area around 1:20 a.m., stopped near a gas station in Santa Barbara and ultimately arrived in Chula Vista near the border around 6:20 a.m. on July 1, according to the affidavit.
The two had outstanding arrest warrants from San Luis Obispo County Superior Court when they crossed the border into the United States together on July 1, court documents said.
Le told investigators that she and Navarro asked the girl to hide in the back seat of the car so “she would not be detected” and took her to the home of Navarro’s father in Tijuana, according to the affidavit.
Navarro admitted to law enforcement that he and Le took the girl to his father’s residence in Mexico, the affidavit said.
On Monday, the affidavit said, Navarro’s ex-wife told investigators that Navarro took her and their two children to his father’s house in Tijuana, and sent law enforcement videos Le took at the residence. Geolocation data from the videos showed Navarro’s father’s home where the girl was located.
Mexican law enforcement went to the house, found the girl and took her into protective custody that night, the affidavit said.
If convicted, Navarro and Le face a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in federal prison and a potential sentence of life without parole, the DOJ wrote in an email.
The FBI and the county Sheriff’s Office investigated the incident with help from the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office. The FBI’s legal attaché in Mexico City and Mexican law enforcement authorities also provided assistance.
Assistant United States Attorney Kevin Reidy of the Violent and Organized Crime Section is prosecuting the case.
The teen has since been reunited with family members, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office said in a release.
This story was originally published July 12, 2022 at 3:52 PM.
