Joppa Man Pleads Guilty to Enticing a Minor to Engage in Sexual Activity

BALTIMORE—Larry W. Warner, Jr., age 33, of Joppa, Maryland, pleaded guilty late yesterday to enticing a minor to engage in sexual activity.

The guilty plea was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein; Special Agent in Charge Richard A. McFeely of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Chief James W. Johnson of the Baltimore County Police Department; and Special Agent in Charge William Winter of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations.

According to the plea agreement, in September and November, 2010, Warner posted advertisements in an online website seeking girls’ underwear for Warner to use in an act which Warner described in a sexually explicit manner. A Baltimore County detective responded to the ads, in one instance representing that he was the father of a minor girl, and in the second instance representing that he was a prepubescent minor girl. In each case, Warner engaged in graphic sexual conversations and sent sexually explicit electronic photos of children or himself to the undercover detective.

On November 3, 2010, Warner agreed to travel to a Baltimore County hotel to have sexual contact with what he thought was the minor daughter of the undercover detective, but Warner later cancelled the meeting, stating that his father was in the hospital.

In October and November of 2010, Warner posted additional online ads wherein he offered free babysitting services for young children while also describing his own build, genitalia, and sexual tendencies.

After several online sexually explicit conversations with the undercover detective, on November 30, 2010, Warner arranged to meet the supposed minor girl and her 8-year-old sister in Essex, Maryland, in order to engage in sexual activity. On December 1, 2010, Warner drove to the agreed-upon location and was arrested by Baltimore County Police officers.

On December 2, 2010, Baltimore County Police officers executed a search warrant at Warner’s home and recovered a personal computer containing numerous images of child pornography.

As part of the plea agreement, Warner and the government have agreed that if the Court accepts the plea agreement, Warner will be sentenced to 10 years in prison followed by a lifetime of supervised release. Warner will also be required to register as a sex offender in the place where he resides, where he is an employee, and where he is a student, under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). U.S. District Judge Benson E. Legg has scheduled sentencing for January 13, 2012, at 11:00 a.m.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov. Details about Maryland’s program are available at www.justice.gov/usao/md/Safe-Childhood/index.html.

United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein commended the FBI, the Baltimore County Police Department and ICE-HSI for their work in the investigation. Mr. Rosenstein thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark W. Crooks, who is prosecuting the case.