Exploitation charges to be dismissed

A Green River man who admitted to making a video of an underage girl while they were having intercourse will have a felony exploitation charge dismissed if he can complete probation.

Trey Montoya, 18, recently appeared in the Third District Court of Judge Nena James at a sentencing hearing to two felony counts of sexual exploitation of children.

Under Wyoming State Statute 7-13-301, a person can change their plea and be placed on probation. If the person successfully completes the probation, the charge is dismissed. A person can only use this statute once and they must be a first-time offender.

Montoya changed his plea to guilty for one count of sexual exploitation of children, while the other charge was dismissed. If he successfully completes his four-year supervised probation term, the second charge will also be dismissed. However, if he doesn’t complete it, the guilty plea will be entered and he will serve time in prison.

According to court documents, in August of 2017, a detective with the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office interviewed Montoya for an unrelated investigation. During the interview, Montoya told the deputy he would find photos of his underage ex-girlfriend on the phone.

The deputy asked Montoya’s father for permission to search Montoya’s phone and it was granted.

Later on the same day, the deputy obtained a search warrant for Montoya’s phone and extracted photos and videos with the Oxygen Forensic Analyst Software.

He found photos of nude females and searches on pornographic websites.

He also found a homemade video of a female and male having intercourse. The deputy used Geo Tag to find where this video was made and it showed a Rock Springs address. The deputy learned that was the same address where Montoya’s ex-girlfriend lived.

The 16-year-old ex-girlfriend was interviewed and she told the deputy the deputy they broke up because there relationship was toxic. She said Montoya would have photos and a video of her on his phone. She said she asked Montoya to delete the video of them having intercourse because she didn’t know he was even making it. The girl also said she knows Montoya had shown the video to at least one other person because that person asked her about it.

Montoya was interviewed about the video and said he had never showed the video to anyone else and that his ex-girlfriend said he could keep the video as long as he didn’t show anyone.