EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A senior citizen will spend 102 months in prison after admitting he traveled to a small Arizona town to have sex with a 14-year-old girl.
Prosecutors charged John Stephen Baker, 71, with attempted travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual activity after three months of monitoring his online communication with a person he believed to be an underage girl.
Baker allegedly asked the girl about her previous sexual experiences and what her favorite sexual position was before traveling to meet her on May 10, 2023, in Sahuarita, Arizona, court records show.
The girl turned out to be an undercover Homeland Security Investigations agent posing as a minor. Baker was arrested in 2023, pleaded guilty in 2024 and sentenced on Sept. 10 in U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona.
In addition to serving the full eight and a half years in a correctional facility, Baker will be on supervised release for the rest of his life. In a statement to the court, Baker said he really believed the person he was going to meet was a minor, and that he engaged in the travel despite being afraid he would be arrested for having sex with her.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecuted the case as part of the Project Safe Childhood initiative to combat child sexual exploitation.
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