A 31-year-old Tucson man was sentenced Wednesday to 19 years in federal prison followed by a lifetime of supervised release after confessing to abusive sexual contact with a child under the age of 12 near Hickiwan, Arizona, on the Tohono O’odham Nation. Eric Garcia, a member of the Tohono O’odham Nation, pled guilty before a federal judge in Tucson.
According to FBI Phoenix, the abuse occurred between November 11, 2014 and November 11, 2016. Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew C. Cassell prosecuted the case after a collaborative investigation by the Tohono O’odham Police Department and the FBI Phoenix Division’s Tucson Office, according to the Department of Justice.
Because of where the incident occurred, the lawsuit was heard in federal court rather than state courts. According to the Office for Victims of Crime, the Major Crimes Act gives federal courts jurisdiction over major felonies committed on tribal grounds, such as sexual and child abuse. That structure dates back to 1885, when Congress approved legislation following the Supreme Court’s Ex Parte Crow Dog decision, establishing that the FBI oversees significant federal felony investigations in Indian Country, with tribal police serving as the primary local responders, according to the Department of Justice.
Garcia was charged under federal sexual abuse statutes that target abusive sexual contact with a child under the age of 12, a type of offense that includes non-penetrative sexual touching of vulnerable victims. The Department of Justice emphasizes that these statutes carry potential penalties of up to life in prison, as well as mandatory sex offender registration and longer supervised release terms.
Because parole was abolished in the federal system for offenses committed after 1987, Garcia will not be eligible for early release, as some state offenders may be. Garcia is anticipated to spend at least 16 years in prison before his lifetime of supervised release begins, as federal offenders must serve at least 85 percent of their issued sentence, with good conduct credit limited to 15 percent.
Hickiwan is one of the Tohono O’odham Nation’s 11 political districts, located in the western area of the reservation near Ajo and the Barry M. Goldwater Range, and has a population of approximately 800 people, according to Luke Air Force Base. The reservation itself covers over 2.8 million acres in Pima, Pinal, and Maricopa counties — a land base almost the size of Connecticut — and has nearly 30,000 enrolled members, making it Arizona’s second-largest reservation by land area, according to the Indian Health Service.
That scale emphasizes the practical problem confronting the tiny number of tribal and federal agents tasked with investigating serious crimes across the reservation. Garcia’s case is one of several recent federal charges involving past allegations of child sexual abuse on the same reservation.
In July 2026, 39-year-old Mario JB Juan of Sells pled guilty to federal charges of abusive sexual contact with a child under 12 stemming from a 2015 incident while working at a tribal Head Start preschool program; he faces up to life in prison at his October sentencing, according to the Department of Justice. Last month, Hoodline reported on Juan’s guilty plea.
In a related Southern Arizona case, 30-year-old Johney Lynn Hammond, an enrolled member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison in May 2026 for abusive sexual contact with two children under the age of nine. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Tucson prosecuted the case as well. Together with Garcia’s sentence, the instances demonstrate continuous multi-decade federal prison terms for child sexual assault convictions throughout the region’s native communities.
These prosecutions are part of Project Safe Childhood, a Department of Justice project begun in 2006 that pulls together federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement to prevent child abuse thru cooperative investigations, according to the agency. Hoodline has previously reported on other incidents involving the Tohono O’odham Nation, such as a federal indictment of a man accused of attempting to seduce a kid in September 2025 and a January 2026 sentencing of an Arizona lady for delivering lethal narcotics to a youngster on the reservation.
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