{"id":171071,"date":"2026-02-19T08:21:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T08:21:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/171071\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T08:21:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T08:21:17","slug":"massive-sentence-for-impregnating-11-year-old-in-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/171071\/","title":{"rendered":"Massive Sentence for Impregnating 11-Year-Old in Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A man who was once on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dps.texas.gov\/news\/criminal-illegal-immigrant-most-wanted-list-arrested-houston\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Texas 10 Most Wanted Criminal Illegal Immigrant List<\/a> has recently been sentenced to nearly four decades in prison after he was found guilty for sexually assaulting a child.<\/p>\n<p>Wanted for Impregnating an 11-Year-Old<\/p>\n<p>In July 2024, border agents stopped a woman attempting to cross the Texas-Mexico border. The mother of<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dps.texas.gov\/news\/former-texas-10-most-wanted-criminal-illegal-immigrant-sentenced-38-years-child-sex-abuse\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">\u00a022-year-old Jose Miguel Zelaya-Ponce<\/a>\u00a0was in the process of transporting\u00a0one of her other sons and\u00a0a pregnant 11-year-old girl as passengers.<\/p>\n<p>Texas Department of Public Safety<\/p>\n<p>Texas Department of Public Safety<\/p>\n<p>The woman\u00a0was arrested\u00a0and charged with human smuggling of a minor under the age of 18. Additionally, a warrant for Zelaya-Ponce&#8217;s\u00a0arrest was issued out of Harris County where he was hiding after it was\u00a0discovered that the 11-year-old girl was pregnant with\u00a0his child.<\/p>\n<p>Read More:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/kfyo.com\/common-arrest-errors-texas\/?utm_source=tsmclip&amp;utm_medium=referral\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Don\u2019t Make These Mistakes During a Texas Arrest<\/a>Zelaya-Ponce&#8217;s Capture and Sentencing<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Zelaya-Ponce was finally captured one month later after he was added to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dps.texas.gov\/news\/criminal-illegal-immigrant-most-wanted-list-arrested-houston\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Texas&#8217; 10 Most Wanted Criminal Illegal Immigrants List<\/a> for aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14 years of age.<\/p>\n<p>It was later discovered that the 11-year-old victim had been living with Zelaya-Ponce in Houston and had sustained continual sexual abuse.<\/p>\n<p>Zelaya-Ponce was sentenced to 38 years in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tdcj.texas.gov\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Texas Department of Criminal Justice<\/a> as a result.<\/p>\n<p>Texas&#8217; Most Wanted Lists<\/p>\n<p>You can always keep up with the latest wanted fugitives in the Lone Star State with one of several <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dps.texas.gov\/Texas10MostWanted\/MostWanted\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Texas 10 Most Wanted Lists<\/a>. Here you can view individuals with active warrants where the state is offering cash rewards for information on their capture.<\/p>\n<p>The Top 10 Most Wanted Gang Fugitives in Lubbock For February 2026<\/p>\n<p>Lubbock Police, Lubbock County Sheriff&#8217;s Department, and even authorities in other parts of Texas are looking for these fugitives who have been spotted before in the Lubbock area. Take a look and see if you recognize any of these fugitives. This list could be updated later in February.<\/p>\n<p class=\"photogallery-credit\">Gallery Credit: Chad Hasty<\/p>\n<p>Texas Crime Statistics By City<\/p>\n<p>Check to see how crime compares in your city versus elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p class=\"photogallery-credit\">Gallery Credit: Toni Gee, Townsquare Media<\/p>\n<p>The Worst Texas Crimes Committed by Minors<\/p>\n<p>Here is a list of the worst crimes committed by minors in Texas history<\/p>\n<p class=\"photogallery-credit\">Gallery Credit: <a href=\"https:\/\/knue.com\/author\/billyjenkins\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Billy Jenkins<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man who was once on the Texas 10 Most Wanted Criminal Illegal Immigrant List has recently been&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[168,170,169],"class_list":["post-171071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}