Knoxville Man Pleads Guilty to Attempting to Entice 12-Year-Old to Engage in Sex

KNOXVILLE—Raymond Boden, 58, of Knoxville, Tennessee, pleaded guilty today before the Honorable Thomas A. Varlan, U.S. District Court Judge, to attempting to entice a 12-year-old child to engage in illegal sexual activity.

A sentencing hearing has been set for 2:00 p.m. on October 17, 2012. Boden faces a minimum mandatory term of 10 years in prison up to life, a fine of $250,000, a term of supervised release of five years up to life, and a $100 special assessment.

In May 2011 an investigator with Knoxville Police Department’s Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force located an online public posting on the Knoxville Craigslist website that sought a mother and daughter to engage in sexual fantasies. The ICAC investigator, working in an undercover capacity, responded to the Craigslist website posting, asking what the anonymous poster “had in mind.” Boden responded to the undercover investigator’s inquiry, expressing his interest in engaging in sexual activity with a mother and her daughter, using his personal e-mail account. Boden thereafter engaged in a series of e-mail exchanges over the Internet with the undercover investigator, who was posing as the adult mother of a 12-year-old child.

In June 2011, Boden arrived at a specified hotel and room number to meet the undercover investigator, who was posing as the mother with her 12-year-old child. After Boden knocked on the hotel room door, and an undercover officer identified him through the latched door, he was taken into custody. When he was arrested, Boden had in his possession various items, to include sexual aids and a gift for the child.

This conviction is the result of a collaborative investigation by the Knoxville Police Department ICAC and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa Kirby represented the United States.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood (PSC), a Department initiative launched in 2006 that aims to combat the proliferation of technology-facilitated sexual exploitation crimes against children. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Department of Justice Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, PSC marshals federal, state, tribal, 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 visit ProjectSafeChildhood.gov.