Press Release
Jefferson County, Kentucky, Resident Guilty Of Online Enticement
For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Western District of Kentucky
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – United States Attorney John E. Kuhn, Jr., announced today that a Jefferson County, Kentucky, resident pled guilty in United States District Court this week, before Senior Judge Thomas B. Russell, to attempted online enticement.
According to the factual basis of the plea agreement, Timothy Wayne Tucker, admitted to using a cell phone to communicate with a person, whom Tucker believed to be a 15-year-old girl, for the purposes of engaging in sexual activity.
While authorized by the Attorney General to conduct undercover (UC) operations within the Commonwealth, on December 2, 2016, a law enforcement official created an ad on the Louisville Craigslist website under the personals tab titled “nothing serious”. The ad did not request any sexual contact from prospective responders. A person later identified as Tucker contacted the UC that same day through the Craigslist Email server system. The UC identified himself to Tucker as a 15-year-old female.
During the online communications, email and then texting, Tucker brought up the subject of sexual activity with the person he believed to be a 15-year-old girl. Specifically, he asked the UC to engage in sexual activity with himself and an adult female. The UC agreed to meet Tucker on December 6, 2016, at an address on Wilderness Trail in Eastern Jefferson County, Kentucky. Law enforcement officials watched Tucker drive to the agreed upon location and conducted a traffic stop and arrested Tucker. A search of the vehicle revealed a loaded 9mm handgun as well as alcohol Tucker had promised to bring the UC. A search warrant on the phone confirmed that it was the device Tucker had used to communicate with the UC.
According to the plea agreement, at the time of sentencing, the United States will seek a ten year prison sentence and a twenty year term of supervised release.
Sentencing is scheduled before Senior Judge Russell, in Louisville, on July 17, 2017.
Assistant United States Attorney Jo E. Lawless is prosecuting this case and Kentucky Attorney General’s Department of Criminal Investigations is investigating.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006, by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc For more information about internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab resources.
Updated April 27, 2017
Topic
Project Safe Childhood
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