Source: Office of United States Attorneys
SCRANTON – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that Kenneth Lesser, age 50, a resident of East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, was sentenced to 120 months’ imprisonment by United States District Court Judge Julia K. Munley, for attempted online enticement of a minor.
According to the United States Attorney Gerard M. Karam, between July 17, 2023 and August 3, 2023, Lesser, used the internet and an electronic device to attempt to persuade, induce, entice, and coerce, a person who he believed to be a 13-year-old child to engage in sexual conduct and to produce images of child pornography. During that period, on multiple occasions, Lesser transmitted obscene photographs of himself to the purported child.
This case 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.
The investigation was conducted by Homeland Security Investigations – Philadelphia Division. Assistant United States Attorney Tatum Wilson prosecuted the case.
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