Man Pleads Guilty in Internet Sex Case
A Mississippi man has pleaded guilty to federal charges of traveling to Los Angeles to have sex with a teenager he met in an Internet chat room, a federal prosecutor said Thursday.
The teenager whom Donald P. Dees thought he would be meeting at the Santa Monica Pier turned out to be an FBI agent in disguise.
Dees, 46, entered his plea late Wednesday to one count each of interstate travel with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity with a minor and using the Internet to induce a minor to engage in criminal sexual activity.
Assistant U.S. Atty. Wendy Clendening said Dees began communicating with the agent, who posed as a girl named Laura, on May 18. Over the next few days, he asked her to have sex with him when he came to California on business, and described several sex acts he wanted to engage in, Clendening said.
He also sent pictures of himself, including his genitalia, and of adults having sex, the prosecutor said.
After his arrest, Dees was fired from his job at Ingalls shipbuilding company in Pascagoula, Miss.
He faces a maximum 30 years in federal prison and $500,000 in fines when he is sentenced on Feb. 14.
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