Man convicted of sex trafficking 16-year-old Venezuelan girl he met in Kentucky
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- Federal jury convicts 23-year-old Nelson Perez-Martinez on all counts.
- Suspects transported the 16-year-old from Richmond to San Antonio in July 2024.
- Ramirez-Fernandez pleaded guilty and faces 10 years to life and deportation.
A Venezuelan man who previously lived in Kentucky was convicted by a federal jury Monday of sex trafficking a 16-year-old girl.
Nelson Perez-Martinez, 23, was convicted after a six-day trial on charges of aiding and abetting the sex trafficking of children, aiding and abetting the benefits from sex trafficking of children, aiding and abetting coercion and enticement of a minor, conspiracy to sex traffic children and transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Western District of Texas.
Perez-Martinez came to the U.S. illegally in December 2023, federal prosecutors said, and came to Richmond six months later. There, he met with co-conspirator Giannys Ramirez-Fernandez, who had brought an undocumented 16-year-old Venezuelan orphan to Madison County in December 2022.
Perez-Martinez and Ramirez-Fernandez were friends and devised a plan to sex traffic the 16-year-old girl in San Antonio. Federal prosecutors said they boarded a bus from Richmond to San Antonio in July 2024 and began prostituting the girl.
The pair accompanied the girl to about a half-dozen hotels in the summer of 2024, prosecutors said.
The pair lived off the funds from prostituting the girl for about six weeks, the attorney’s office said.
On July 30, 2024, an undercover San Antonio Police officer with the Human Exploitation Unit acted as a customer for the scheme and arrested Perez-Martinez and Ramirez-Fernandez.
The officer responded to an advertisement for escort services on the internet and met Perez-Martinez and Ramirez-Fernandez at a Studio 6 motel on Pasteur Court in San Antonio. The attorney’s office said the suspects, who were acting as spotters — people who watch for law enforcement to arrive at the scene of a crime — were taken into custody after the girl agreed to prostitution services.
“When we tolerate the stolen innocence of children, we slowly lose our soul as a nation,” U.S. Attorney Justin R. Simmons said in a news release. “In the Western District of Texas, we have zero tolerance for aliens who enter our country illegally and commit heinous crimes like those committed in this case.”
Perez-Martinez was charged in a five-count superseding indictment Oct. 1, 2025. The attorney’s office said an initial trial for Perez-Martinez later that month resulted in a hung jury, but a jury this month returned guilty verdicts on all counts.
A sentencing hearing for Perez-Martinez has not yet been set.
Ramirez-Fernandez, who was 17 years at the time of the crime, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting sex trafficking of children, conspiracy to sex traffic children and transportation of minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity in September 2025. The attorney’s office said she faces 10 years to life in prison.
Ramirez-Fernandez is scheduled to be sentenced April 20. She also has an ICE immigration detainer, meaning she will be deported after she serves her sentence, the attorney’s office said.
This story was originally published February 27, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
