DALLAS— Michael Joseph Carr, 25, of Grand Prairie, Texas, was sentenced yesterday by U.S. District Judge Jane J. Boyle to serve 210 months (17.5 years) in federal prison, following his guilty plea in December 2015 to one count of enticement of a minor, announced U.S. Attorney John Parker of the Northern District of Texas.
Carr has been in federal custody since his arrest in May 2015 on a related federal criminal complaint.
According to documents filed in the case, on March 24, 2015, officers with the Grand Prairie Police Department responded to a call regarding a 15-year-old female who was missing from her guardian’s residence. While driving through the neighborhood, officers observed a suspicious vehicle parked at a church on Tamara Lane in Grand Prairie. Two individuals occupied the rear passenger area. The male occupant, later identified as Carr, opened the door and immediately began apologizing. The other occupant was identified as the missing girl, Jane Doe, who stated she and Carr met on an online social media website.
A subsequent search of Jane Doe’s mobile device revealed that she was using the Kik instant messaging application to engage in sexually explicit communications with another Kik user, later identified as Carr. Carr admits that he used the Internet, Kik and his cell phone to entice Jane Doe to engage in sexual activity with him.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Project Safe Childhood (PSC) initiative. PSC is a department initiative launched in May 2006 that aims to combat the proliferation of technology-facilitated sexual exploitation crimes against children. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, PSC marshals federal, state, tribal and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. Since FY 2011, the Department of Justice has filed 20,260 Project Safe Childhood (PSC) cases against 19,111 defendants. These cases include prosecutions of child sex trafficking; sexual abuse of a minor or ward; child pornography offenses; obscene visual representation of the sexual abuse of children; selling or buying of children; and many more statutes. To learn more about PSC’s work, please visit: https://www.justice.gov/psc.
For more information regarding the National Strategy to Combat Child Exploitation, Prevention and Interdiction, please visit: https://www.justice.gov/psc/national-strategy-child-exploitation-prevention-and-interdiction.
The Grand Prairie Police Department and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) investigated. Assistant U.S. Attorney Camille Sparks was in charge of the prosecution.
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