Michael Ellis Treas-Baca, Sexual Abuse, New Mexico 2016

ALBUQUERQUE — A Mescalero Apache Nation man was sentenced to 78 months in prison for his conviction on a sexual abuse charge.

Michael Ellis Treas-Baca, 31, an enrolled member of the Mescalero Apache Nation who resides in Mescalero, N.M., was sentenced on an unspecified date in federal court in Las Cruces, N.M. He will be required to register as a sex offender when he completes his prison sentence.

Treas-Baca was arrested on April 7, 2016 on a criminal complaint charging him with sexually abusing a Mescalero Apache woman on September 13, 2015, on the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation in Otero County, N.M.

On November 16, 2016, Treas-Baca pled guilty to a felony information charging him with sexual abuse. In entering the guilty plea, Treas-Baca admitted that on September 13, 2015, he sexually abused the victim while she was unconscious and physically incapable of declining participating in the sexual act.

This case was investigated by the Las Cruces office of the FBI and the Mescalero Agency of the BIA’s Office of Justice Services. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Aaron O. Jordan of the U.S. Attorney’s Las Cruces Branch Office as part of the Tribal Special Assistant U.S. Attorney (Tribal SAUSA) Pilot Project in the District of New Mexico, which is sponsored by the Justice Department’s Office on Violence Against Women under a grant administered by the Pueblo of Laguna.

The Tribal SAUSA Pilot Project seeks to train tribal prosecutors in federal law, procedure and investigative techniques to increase the likelihood that every viable violent offense against Native American women is prosecuted in either federal court or tribal court, or both.

The defendant, Michael Ellis Treas-Baca, is 31 years old and an enrolled member of the Mescalero Apache Nation who resides in Mescalero, N.M. He was charged with sexual abuse of a Mescalero Apache woman on September 13, 2015, on the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation in Otero County, N.M.

Treas-Baca will be required to serve 78 months in prison followed by five years of supervised release for his conviction on the sexual abuse charge.

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