Two Sex Offenders Get Massive Sentences for Online Solicitation of a Minor

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – Two men, already convicted sex offenders who resided in Corpus Christi, have both been sentenced for online solicitation of a minor in separate but similar cases, announced U.S. Attorney Kenneth Magidson. James Robert Kirkland, 48, and Taylor Alan Mills, 30, both pleaded guilty in December 2015.

Late today, Senior U.S. District Hayden Head to ordered Kirkland serve a total of 324 months in federal prison to immediately followed by a lifetime of supervised release. At the hearing, a Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agent testified that in 1998, Kirkland was convicted in North Carolina for indecent liberties with a child and was required to register as a sex offender. In that case, Kirkland sexually assaulted an 10-year-old family member. In 2001, Kirkland was also convicted in federal court for bank robbery. The court also heard that Kirkland was on a federal supervised release for a 2010 failure to register as a sex offender conviction when he was arrested on the online solicitation of a minor case. The court revoked that term and ordered he serve 24 months on that charge which will be served consecutively to the 300-month sentence for the current solicitation of a minor conviction, resulting in a total term of 324 months in federal prison.

Earlier this week, Senor U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack ordered Mills to federal prison for a term of 25 years and must serve the rest of his life on supervised release. At that hearing, additional evidence was presented from an Aransas Pass Police Department detective who worked on his 2013 online solicitation of a minor case. According to testimony, Mills began having a conversation on a social media website with a 16-year-old girl in 2012. Mills eventually picked up the girl from school and exposed himself to her. He was convicted in state court in 2013 and required to register as a sex offender.

Both must also register as sex offenders.

At the time of their pleas, the court heard that in September 2015, FBI, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Corpus Christi Police Department - Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (CCPD-ICAC) conducted a joint investigation targeting individuals involved in online solicitation of minors. Mills and Kirkland were both communicating with a person they believed was the mother of two minor female children – ages 14 and 11. In reality, they were actually talking to an undercover officer. Mills and Kirkland each made arrangements to meet and engage in sexual activity with the mother’s minor female children.

Both men were apprehended as they arrived at the designated meeting places. At the time of each man’s arrest, they both had several condoms with them and admitted to authorities that their intentions were to engage in sexual acts with the minor children.

Both men were arrested on the federal charges in September 2015 and have been in custody since that time where they will remain pending transfer to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future.

This case, prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Hugo R. Martinez, was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc. For more information about internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab "resources."