Johnson City Man Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison for Child Sex Crime

GREENEVILLE, TN—Gary Dale Keith, 40, of Johnson City, Tennessee, was sentenced in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Greeneville, by the Honorable J. Ronnie Greer, United States District Judge, to 10 years in prison and, upon completion of his sentence, life on supervised release. The sentence was the result of a guilty plea by Keith on August 24, 2009, to a federal grand jury indictment charging him with knowingly transporting a minor in interstate commerce with the intent to engage in sexual criminal activity with that minor. There is no parole in the federal system.

In June 2009, Gary Dale Keith took a 13-year-old female from Johnson City, Tennessee, into North Carolina, where he engaged in sexual intercourse with the minor child. The child was found based on a tip that was received through the Johnson City Police Department’s use of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s missing child website. The Johnson City Police Department relayed the information to the Iredell County Sheriff’s Office in North Carolina, which used the information to find the minor child and to apprehend Keith in Hickory, North Carolina.

The indictment and subsequent conviction of Keith was the result of an intense month-long investigation conducted by the Johnson City Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Investigator Debbie Dunn of the Johnson City Police Department worked tirelessly on this case and played a significant role in Keith’s apprehension and ultimate conviction. The case was prosecuted by Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Whittemore.