NICOLAS Franklin Salas Palacios has pled not guilty to possession of child pornography.
At an arraignment last week in federal court, Palacios, through his court-appointed attorney David Banes, waived the reading of the charge and the reading of his rights and entered a plea of not guilty.
Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona of the District Court for the NMI accepted the plea and scheduled a jury trial for July 8, 2025, at 10 a.m.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Garth Backe, the prosecutor, informed the court that at this time no victims were identified.
After the hearing, Judge Manglona remanded Palacios to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.
Background
Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent Richard Bauer, in an affidavit in support of the criminal complaint and arrest warrant, said Palacios violated Title 18, United States Code section 2252(a)(4)(B) (Possession of Child Pornography).
According to the complaint, on Feb. 11, 2025, the FBI special agent was contacted by a detective from the Department of Public Safety reporting a complaint he received from a community member.
Bauer conducted an interview with the complainant on March 6, 2025.
He said the complainant told him that around Feb. 8-14, 2025, while in Palacios’ home, the defendant began talking about his “kinks” and the different things that aroused him sexually.
The complaint stated that Palacios revealed that he was sexually aroused by young children and had accessed and downloaded videos and images of children in sexual situations through the “dark web” and torrent programs.
Palacios also showed the complainant the videos and images on his MacBook, the complaint stated.
Database and social media checks conducted by the FBI revealed multiple email accounts belonging to Palacios.
A cyber tip linked to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children submitted by Google on Feb. 6, 2025, listed Palacios as a suspect.
On April 22, 2025, the FBI executed a search and seizure warrant at Palacios’ residence, where eight electronic devices were seized, while the defendant was detained at the scene.
After being advised of his Miranda rights, Palacios waived them and responded to questioning.
Palacios said that sometime in 2015 while in college, he began experimenting with drugs, and a college friend introduced him to videos of child pornography. He said he would typically download images and videos of child pornography from the “dark web” when he was high and would delete them after watching them.
No other information about the defendant was available as of press time Monday evening.