DETROIT – An Ypsilanti man will be spending more than 15 years behind bars after pleading guilty to coercing and enticing a minor.
Mubasher Riaz, 41, was messaging a 13-year-old in Ohio back in July 2023 on Snapchat. Prosecutors said investigators found that Riaz requested and received nude photos from the teen and tried to gather information about her home with intentions to meet with her and sexually assault her.
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FBI agents reviewed Riaz’s Snapchat and found that the 41-year-old man had been messaging numerous children who identified themselves as minors, some as young as 11 years old.
The United States Attorney’s Office said Riaz communicated with a 13-year-old girl, drove to her foster home and sexually assaulted her in his parked car. He also offered victims tobacco and other items in exchange for sex acts.
He was sentenced to 188 months in federal prison. As part of his sentence, Riaz will pay $150,000 in restitution to the victims.
“This defendant preyed in the most disgusting ways on vulnerable girls as young as 11 years old. Those are the actions of an evil man. And we will do everything in our power to prosecute fiends who prowl around pursuing our children,” U.S. Attorney Jerome Gorgon, Jr. said.
“The sentencing of Mubasher Riaz sends a powerful and unequivocal message: those who exploit children will be investigated aggressively and held fully accountable under federal law,” said Cheyvoryea Gibson, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Detroit Field Office. “I commend the exceptional efforts of our Ann Arbor Resident Agency and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan. Their unwavering dedication to justice was instrumental in securing this conviction. The FBI in Michigan is resolute in its mission to protect children and ensure that anyone who seeks to harm them will face justice.”