EAST ST. LOUIS - United States District Court Chief Judge Michael J. Reagan handed down a 20-year sentence in federal prison to Emmanuel D. Abdon, 31, of Hollywood, Fla., for traveling across state lines to have sex with a 13-year-old area girl.
The judge instructed Abdon's sentence is to be followed by five years of supervised release. Abdon was also ordered to pay $43,974 in restitution to the victim’s family.
Get The Latest News!
Don't miss our top stories and need-to-know news everyday in your inbox.
In January 2018, Abdon traveled from Florida to Troy, Illinois, to have sex with the girl. The two had previously met on Snapchat, where Abdon falsely told the victim he was 24 years old. The evidence presented at sentencing established that Abdon knew his young victim was emotionally vulnerable when, over a three-week period beginning in late December 2017, he used text messages, FaceTime, and Snapchat in an attempt to persuade, induce, entice, and coerce her to engage in sexual activity with him.
On the day he arrived in Troy, Abdon met the victim in her driveway on two separate occasions. Both times her parents were not at home. During their second meeting, Abdon presented the middle-schooler with a pack of Swisher Sweets cigars, a lighter, some jewelry, and a sex toy.
A third meeting planned for later that day was foiled thanks to the victim’s 14-year-old friend. Identified in court only as K.S., the friend witnessed the first meeting between Abdon and the victim and voiced concerns to her foster mother, who promptly notified the Troy Police Department. The responding officers quickly discovered that Abdon had rented a motel room roughly one mile from the victim’s house. They immediately set up surveillance and followed Abdon as he drove from the motel back to the victim’s house. Within a few short hours of receiving the initial report, Troy Police intercepted and arrested Abdon as he was pulling into the victim’s driveway.
During a voluntary, videotaped statement, Abdon eventually admitted receiving nude pictures of the victim and knowing that she was underage before he traveled to Illinois to meet her. Text messages recovered from the victim’s phone revealed sexually explicit texts she had received from Abdon. The investigation further revealed that Abdon was planning to have the victim sneak out of her house and meet him for sex in his hotel room later that night. Officers found two condoms in his wallet.
Abdon’s first trial was held in July 2018 and ended in a mistrial. The case was retried over three days in November, after which a jury sitting in East St. Louis convicted Abdon on charges of attempting to entice a minor to engage in illicit sex acts and traveling across state lines intending to have illicit sex with a minor.
At sentencing, Judge Reagan praised the victim’s friend and her foster mother as “unsung heroes” for their actions in the case. The United States also introduced Snapchat messages between Abdon and other minors in which he lied about his age and where he lived.
Abdon was born in Haiti and was living in the United States as a lawful permanent resident when he committed his crimes. He is expected to be deported back to Haiti once his term of imprisonment ends.
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. For more information about internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab “resources.”
The case was investigated by the Troy Police Department and the Department of Homeland Security-Homeland Security Investigations. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Angela Scott.
More like this:
