District Man Pleads Guilty to Making Arrangements to Have Sexual Contact with a Child

WASHINGTON—Carl Lott, 47, of Washington, D.C., pled guilty today to arranging to have sexual contact with a child, announced U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen, Jr.; Valerie Parlave, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office; and Cathy L. Lanier, Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).

Lott entered the guilty plea in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. The Honorable Stuart G. Nash is to sentence him on April 11, 2013. Lott faces a maximum sentence of five years of imprisonment, as well as a fine of up to $50,000.

According to the government’s evidence, on November 8, 2012, Lott contacted a man he believed to be the father of a 12-year-old female child on a social network site. That man turned out to be an undercover MPD officer with the FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force.

Over the next two days, Lott engaged in online e-mail conversations with the undercover officer about having sexual relations with the purported child. During this period of time, Lott arranged a meeting—including time, date, and location—with the undercover officer for the purpose of having sexual relations with the purported child. On November 9, 2012, Lott met the undercover officer and was arrested.

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.justice.gov/psc.

In announcing the guilty plea, U.S. Attorney Machen, Assistant Director in Charge Parlave, and Chief Lanier praised the MPD detectives and special agents of the FBI Child Exploitation Task Force. They also commended Assistant U.S. Attorney Ari Redbord, who is prosecuting the case.