A former FBI agent has been sentenced in Montgomery County, Maryland, after being convicted of raping three women in tattoo parlors he operated.
Eduardo Valdivia, 31, received a 60-year prison sentence in Montgomery County Circuit Court on Tuesday following his July conviction on six counts of second-degree rape and two counts of fourth-degree sex offenses.
According to Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy, the judge chose to impose a sentence above the standard guidelines due to the severity of Valdivia’s crimes and their impact on the victims. McCarthy emphasized that Valdivia’s background as a “trained FBI agent” — skilled in undercover tactics and deception — made his actions particularly egregious.
“These were all young women,” McCarthy said. “The youngest victim was a high school senior. The emotional and psychological impact was profound, and that’s why we sought the sentence we did.”
Investigators determined that Valdivia’s part-time work at the tattoo parlors had not been authorized by the FBI. Prosecutors said he lured the victims by offering free tattoos in exchange for supposed modeling opportunities, creating a false promise of career advancement to manipulate and assault them.
In their sentencing memorandum, prosecutors argued that Valdivia “crafted an illusion” of professional success to exploit his victims, requesting the statutory maximum penalty of 122 years in prison.
The jury in this case did not hear about Valdivia’s earlier legal troubles. In December 2022, he was acquitted of attempted murder after shooting an unarmed man on a Red Line train near Bethesda’s Medical Center station in December 2020. The jury found that Valdivia acted in self-defense during that incident.
