Michael Ellis Treas-Baca, 31, Sentenced to 78 Months in Prison for Sexual Abuse Conviction in New Mexico

ALBUQUERQUE – A Mescalero Apache man has been sentenced to 78 months in prison for his conviction on a sexual abuse charge. Michael Ellis Treas-Baca, 31, was sentenced in federal court in Las Cruces, N.M., to 78 months in prison followed by five years of supervised release for his conviction on a sexual abuse charge.

Treas-Baca will be required to register as a sex offender when he completes his prison sentence. The victim in the case was a Mescalero Apache woman who was abused on Sept. 13, 2015, on the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation in Otero County, N.M.

Treas-Baca was arrested on April 7, 2016, on a criminal complaint charging him with sexually abusing the victim. In entering a guilty plea, Treas-Baca admitted that he sexually abused the victim while she was unconscious and physically incapable of declining participation in the sexual act.

The 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.

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 Tribal SAUSA Pilot Project was largely driven by input gathered from annual tribal consultations on violence against women, and is another step in the federal government’s on-going efforts to increase engagement, coordination and action on public safety in tribal communities.

MORE FEDERAL CRIME NEWS

Sex Crimes

Michael Tibbs, Coercing Minors into Sending Nude Images, Virginia 2024

Apr 7, 2026

Sex Crimes

Raleigh McClam, Sex Trafficking of a Minor, Maryland 2016

May 16, 2016

Sex Crimes

Leroy Reed, Child Pornography, New York 2022

May 3, 2022

Sex Crimes

Dennis McCullough, Child Pornography, Wisconsin 2026

May 23, 2026