A former Texas 10 Most Wanted Sex Offender was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for failing to quickly register as required by law, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas. Raymond Lee Trejo, 36, from Abilene, who was convicted in 2009 for sexual assault of a child, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix last Thursday, December 11. Trejo had pleaded guilty back in August of this year.
After serving a decade in prison, Trejo was released in 2019 and required to adhere to sex offender registration guidelines under both state and federal mandates, including the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act. However, records indicate that Trejo vanished from his registered location in Abilene last November, and efforts to locate him by the Taylor County law enforcement were unsuccessful. A warrant for his arrest was subsequently issued in May 2024, after which he made it onto the Texas Department of Public Safety's 10 Most Wanted Sex Offenders list in December of that year. Information had later surfaced that Trejo had been living and working in Stilwell, Oklahoma, since at least September 2024 without notifying authorities of his whereabouts.
Trejo was ultimately arrested at his workplace in March 2025 and was then extradited to Taylor County, Texas. "Trejo’s conduct involved his crossing state lines from the State of Texas to the State of Oklahoma, without complying with the sex offender registration requirements of either state," stated U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould in the source document. This failure to register in accordance with federal laws was what led to his recent 18-month federal sentence, per the U.S. Attorney's Office.
The investigation that brought Trejo to justice was a collaborative effort involving the U.S. Marshals Service for the Northern District of Texas, the Eastern District of Oklahoma, local police departments, and the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. Assistant U.S. Attorney Callie Woolam prosecuted the case with aid from the Taylor County District Attorney's Office. This case was also part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative by the Department of Justice to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse. The Justice Department partners with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which operates a 24/7 hotline for tips on potential child sexual exploitation.
