BANGOR — A soldier from Texas, who was convicted of taking a 14-year-old girl from western Maine out of state to have sex, was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison.
Christopher Meza, 23, of Killeen, Texas, was found guilty by a jury at trial in November 2023 on five felony charges, including enticement of a minor, two counts of transportation of a minor and two counts of travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct.
Each of the latter two crimes is punishable by up to 30 years in prison and each of the remaining three crimes is punishable by up to 10 years.
After release from prison, Meza is to be on supervised release for five years. He was ordered to pay $16,650 in restitution.
U.S. District Judge Lance E. Walker said during the sentencing, “It’s hard to put one’s mind to just how deeply disturbing the conduct was,” and went on to describe the conduct as “debased, deviant, depraved, and craven,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
In a sworn affidavit, Homeland Security Investigations Task Force Officer Tara Phillips wrote in court papers that in September 2021, her Bangor office was contacted by Wilton Police regarding a missing minor. The child was later interviewed.
The child said she had left her home, spent about two days in the woods waiting for Meza as he drove up from Texas, and then left the state with him, Phillips wrote. That course of events was confirmed by text messages between Meza and another minor who accompanied the girl and Meza from Maine to New Hampshire, Phillips wrote.
Meza was found in a hotel room with the girl on or about Sept. 17, 2021, and returned to her family, Phillips wrote.
On about Nov. 22, 2021, Meza returned to Maine from Texas, where he was stationed with the U.S. Army and, again, took the girl with him out of state, Phillips wrote.
They first stopped in New York where, the girl later said in an interview, she and Meza had sexual intercourse. They then traveled to Texas, where Meza had an apartment, Phillips wrote.
In a video-recorded interview with Army investigators, Meza admitted having sexual intercourse with the girl more than once in his apartment. The girl also confirmed they engaged in multiple sex acts while in Texas.
She was found in the first week of December 2021 and again returned to her family, Phillips wrote.
Investigators reviewed records of chat communications Meza and the girl had on a popular internet-based gaming-communication platform, Phillips wrote. Many of them predated both of Meza’s trips to Maine by several months. Meza and the girl would discuss in those chats living together and getting married.
The conversations include explicit sexual descriptions, Phillips wrote, where Meza described acts he would perform on the girl and provided estimates of the driving time from Texas to Maine.
The two also discussed the girl’s age, which was 13 at the time of the communications and 14 at the time of the transport, and the fact that Meza was more than five years older, Phillips wrote.
At the time of Meza’s conduct, he was on active duty in the U.S. Army, Phillips wrote.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Ruge asked the judge to impose a sentence within the mid- to high-guidelines, “particularly because it involved the repeated transport of a child across state lines against the consent of the child’s parents.”
Meza’s attorney, James S. Nixon, wrote in a sentencing memorandum that the judge should consider a “variant” sentence of 120 months, which is the statutory, mandatory minimum sentence for three of the counts of conviction, followed by five years of supervised release.
“Given Mr. Meza’s youth, his status as a victim of sexual abuse at approximately age 6, his emotional immaturity, his potential vulnerability in prison and his complete lack of any criminal history, among other things, the defense respectfully recommends a sentence of 120 months followed by an extended period of supervised release (the defense suggests 5 years,)” Nixon wrote.
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