(KWTX) — A Central Texas woman will spend 25 years in prison for conspiring to sexually abuse a child in Mexico, federal officials said.
Anika Bywater, 29, formerly of Gonzalez, was sentenced Friday to 25 years in prison and 20 years of supervised release, according to the Justice Department. She pleaded guilty Dec. 10, 2025, to “conspiracy to engage in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places.”
Bywater was living in Veracruz, Mexico, when she and another person made two videos of themselves sexually abusing a child, according to court documents and information shared at the sentencing hearing.
In one video, the child tries to crawl away but is stopped by Bywater, court documents said.
Investigators found the videos circulating on the internet, officials said.
The Justice Department’s Criminal Division, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland and the FBI announced the sentence Friday.
The FBI’s Child Exploitation Operational Unit looked into the case with help from the FBI’s office in Mexico City and the Washington Field Office, officials said.
Prosecutors from the Justice Department’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland handled the case.
The case is part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide effort launched in May 2006 to fight child sexual exploitation and abuse, according to the Justice Department.
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