East Boston Man Convicted on Child Prostitution Charges

WASHINGTON – A federal jury in Boston, Mass., convicted Victor Diaz, 24, of East Boston of conspiring to engage in a child prostitution scheme, Alice S. Fisher, Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Michael J. Sullivan for the District of Massachusetts announced today.

Diaz was convicted this morning on one count of conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of a minor after a weeklong jury trial before U.S. District Judge Patti B. Saris. Diaz was charged with conspiring with his niece, Evelyn Diaz, to entice and transport a minor for a commercial sex act between April of 2004 and April of 2005. At trial the Government established that between approximately July of 2003 and May of 2005, Evelyn Diaz operated an escort service that advertised in multiple publications and on the Internet and sent individuals, including minors, on prostitution calls in and around Boston. Victor Diaz assisted in the operation by driving adults and a minor, to whom he and Evelyn Diaz are related, to prostitution calls.

Victor Diaz faces a maximum sentence of 5 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. Evelyn Diaz pleaded guilty in January 2007 to two counts of transporting a minor to engage in prostitution and three counts of sex trafficking of children, in addition to the conspiracy charge, and was sentenced to nine years in federal prison on April 27, 2007.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Dana Gershengorn and Trial Attorney Wendy Waldron of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section in the Department’s Criminal Division. The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Boston Police Department, the Cambridge Police Department and the Massachusetts State Police.

The case is part of the Innocence Lost Initiative, a cooperative effort between the FBI, the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to prevent and prosecute child prostitution.