Child luring

Child luring is covered by 18 U.S.C. §2422(b), which prohibits the use of any facility or means of interstate commerce to knowingly persuade, induce, entice, or coerce a minor to engage in criminal sexual activity or prostitution, or to attempt to do so.

In November 1999, an appellate court upheld the conviction of a defendant who pled guilty to one count of soliciting a minor for a sex act and three counts of transporting a depiction of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Using an online "screen name," the defendant engaged in a series of e-mail and real-time conversations with a government agent, whom the defendant believed to be a 14-year-old girl. During the conversations, the defendant repeatedly attempted to persuade the agent to meet him in a motel to engage in various sexual acts. In addition to these conversations, on three separate occasions, he transmitted three different images of minors involved in sexually explicit conduct via his computer.