District Man Sentenced to Eight Years in Prison for Attempting to Persuade a Minor to Travel and Engage in Illicit Sexual Conduct
Defendant also Found to be in Possession of Methamphetamine
| U.S. Attorney’s Office October 19, 2012 |
WASHINGTON—Kelly Kreitz, 40, of Washington, D.C., has been sentenced to eight years in prison for attempting to persuade a minor to travel to the District of Columbia so that he could engage in sexual conduct with him and for possession of a controlled substance, announced U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen, Jr.; James W. McJunkin, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office; and Cathy L. Lanier, Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).
Kreitz pled guilty to the charges in July 2012 and was sentenced on October 18, 2012, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The Honorable Richard J. Leon also ordered that Kreitz be placed on 10 years of supervised release following completion of his prison term.
According to the government’s evidence, on April 8, 2010, Kreitz contacted an undercover officer with the FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force, who had entered a social network site. Kreitz engaged in online e-mail, instant message, text message, and telephone conversations with the undercover officer, whom he believed had access to an underaged boy who resided in Virginia. During the conversation, Kreitz arranged with the undercover officer to meet for the purpose of engaging in sexual acts with the child.
On April 9, 2010, the defendant arrived at a pre-arranged meeting place in Washington, D.C. When he arrived at the meeting place, he was arrested. At the time of his arrest, Kreitz was found to be in possession of a substance later determined to be methamphetamine.
This case was brought as part of the Department of Justice’s Project Safe Childhood initiative and investigated by the FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force, which includes members of the FBI’s Washington Field Office and MPD.
Project Safe Childhood is 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 U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.
In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Machen, Assistant Director McJunkin, and Chief Lanier praised the MPD detectives and special agents of the FBI Child Exploitation Task Force. They also commended Assistant U.S. Attorney Julieanne Himelstein, who prosecuted the case.