Citrus Heights Man Sentenced to 15 Years in Prison for Attempted Enticement of a Minor
| U.S. Attorney’s Office January 16, 2014 |
SACRAMENTO, CA—James Anthony Demotto, 31, of Citrus Heights, was sentenced today by United States District Judge Troy L. Nunley to 15 years and eight months in prison, to be followed by 20 years of supervised release, for attempted enticement of a minor, United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced.
According to the plea agreement, in May 2012, Demotto began communicating online with an undercover officer in Massachusetts who was posing as a 13-year-old girl. Within several minutes of chatting online, Demotto propositioned her to engage in online sexual conduct and to take photographs of herself.
By January 2013, Demotto engaged in Internet conversations of a sexual nature with two other undercover agents who were posing as under-aged girls. He repeatedly asked for sexually explicit pictures from the “girls.”
When law enforcement searched Demotto’s computer, they found evidence that he had been communicating with actual minors and had received sexually explicit pictures from them. There was also evidence that he had been searching for and downloaded images of child pornography from the Internet. A clown mask was located in his bedroom.
In sentencing Demotto, Judge Nunley expressed concerns about the number of victims in this case. In addition, Judge Nunley noted that Demotto had made attempts to meet with a fictional victim, driving down the street that he believed she lived on and asking her in one online conversation if she “had seen someone in a clown outfit driving around [her] neighborhood?”
“This clearly illustrates why the FBI is committed to identifying and investigating individuals who seek to rob our children of their innocence,” said Special Agent in Charge Monica M. Miller of the FBI’s Sacramento Division. “Any images obtained by Mr. Demotto would likely have been traded among other offenders for years. I am proud of the efforts of our task force and the network of investigators who work tirelessly to identify and investigate individuals who seek to do harm to our innocent children.”
This case was the product of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant United States Attorney Kyle Reardon prosecuted the case.
This prosecution is part of the Department of Justice’s ongoing Project Safe Childhood initiative which was launched to increase federal prosecutions of sexual predators of children and to reduce the number of Internet crimes against children including child pornography trafficking. As a part of PSC, the United States Attorney’s Office has teamed with state and local agencies and organizations to increase law enforcement presence on the Internet and to educate the public about safe Internet use, thereby reducing the risk that children might fall prey to online sexual predators. For additional information on the PSC initiative, please go to www.projectsafechildhood.gov coordinator.