West Valley Man Sentenced for Attempted Enticement of a Minor

BUFFALO, NY—U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr. announced today that Michael Lee Reed, Jr. 22, of West Valley, New York, who was convicted of attempted enticement of a minor to engage in sexual activity, was sentenced to 10 years in prison and five years of supervised release by U.S. District Judge Richard J. Arcara.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael DiGiacomo, who handled the case, stated that the defendant attempted to entice a minor victim to send him provocative pictures through text messages. The victim’s mother contacted law enforcement after looking through her child’s cellular telephone. As a result, no pictures were ever sent by the victim to the defendant.

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.justice.gov/psc.

The conviction is the culmination of an investigation on the part of special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, under the direction of Steven L. Lanser, Acting Special Agent in Charge, and the Cheektowaga Police Department, under the direction of Police Chief David Zack.