A West Palm Beach man with a prior conviction for sex trafficking of a minor is facing the music again after a federal jury found him guilty of failing to register new email addresses and a social media account, ducking out of Florida without informing authorities, and shirking duties to keep law enforcement in Georgia apprised of his location. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida, Ramon Fuertes, also known as "Raymond Cortez," was convicted on four counts of not complying with the Federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA).
Fuertes was required to register any internet identifiers as a part of his sex offender status, which stemmed from his 2009 federal court conviction, he created and began using two new email addresses and a social networking account in 2023, and while those acts were in defiance of the law, what followed compounded his legal troubles; on June 2, 2023, he vacated his West Palm Beach residence, flew to Georgia, and did not inform Florida authorities of his departure or his new residence, an unfolding of events that eventually led to a lack of communication with law enforcement. Fuertes went off the grid by late July 2023, prompting an arrest warrant and his subsequent apprehension on October 24, 2023, by the U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force.
The efforts to bring Fuertes to accountability were a collaboration between various law enforcement agencies including USMS Miami, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, and several Georgia agencies. A sentencing hearing for Fuertes has been scheduled for July 18, and he will face U.S. District Judge Melissa Damian. Announcing the conviction were U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe and U.S. Marshal Gadyaces S. Serralta.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Schiller is tasked with prosecuting the case against Fuertes, relying on evidence from an investigatory effort that had multiple departments working in tandem spanning from Florida to Georgia, the agencies involved included FBI, Georgia Bureau of Investigations, the Dekalb County Sheriff's Office, the Gwinnett County Sheriff's Office, and Gwinnett County Police Department. Interested parties can find the related court documents on the District Court for the Southern District of Florida's website or through the Public Access to Court Electronic Records service, under case number 23-CR-80208.
