In April 2020, Leonard began messaging the teen over social media and told her he was 20 instead of 39, his true age at the time, according to court documents. — Photo by Myznik Egor on Unsplash
A man is facing at least 15 years in federal prison after prosecutors said he installed tracking software on a teen girl’s phone and rode a bus across the country to sexually assault her.
Samuel Aaron Leonard, 42, of New Port Richey, Florida, was arrested outside the 14-year-old girl’s home in Vancouver, Washington, in July 2020, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington.
He pleaded guilty to production of child pornography and interstate travel with intent to engage in a sexual act with a minor in Tacoma federal court on Jan 30, prosecutors announced in a news release.
Brett Andrews Purtzer, one of Leonard’s defence attorneys, described the case as a “tough situation” for his client while speaking with McClatchy News.
He said since Leonard entered the guilty pleas, the case will move forward with a sentencing hearing set for April 15. Purtzer declined to comment further due to the upcoming hearing.
What led up to his arrest?
In April 2020, Leonard began messaging the teen over social media and told her he was 20 instead of 39, his true age at the time, according to court documents.
He “spent months enticing (her) online for sexual abuse”, and convinced her to send him explicit images, prosecutors said.
At some point, Leonard mailed the teen a cellphone so they could continue communicating privately, according to prosecutors. She was unaware Leonard installed tracking software on the device, officials said.
The tracking software allowed Leonard to read the girl’s texts and emails and to keep tabs on her whereabouts, according to the attorney’s office.
Leonard also sent her clothes, underwear and other gifts and suggested they could get “engaged until she was legally old enough to marry”, his plea agreement says.
Leonard told the teen he planned to take a bus to “be closer to her and that, when he arrived, he wanted her to join him in his hotel room”, according to the plea agreement.
By late June 2020, the girl’s guardians learned of the messages between her and Leonard and alerted police, resulting in authorities seizing two of the teen’s phones, prosecutors said.
Afterward, law enforcement started communicating with Leonard while posing as the girl, according to the attorney’s office.
The bus trip to Washington
On June 28, 2020, Leonard got on a bus in Florida and brought “a large sex toy, handcuffs, and personal lubricant” as well as “multiple survival style knives, an axe, a handgun, ten pairs of flex cuffs, rubber gloves and duct tape” with him, the plea agreement says.
He traveled to Vancouver, Washington, and arrived there the evening of July 1, 2022, with plans to perform sexual acts with the teen, prosecutors said.
Law enforcement knew Leonard was in the area and had an undercover officer message him, while pretending to be the girl, saying her guardian had taken the phone he gave her, according to prosecutors.
In response, Leonard “said he would get her a new one”, prosecutors said.
Leonard had no idea police were watching when he threw a package containing the new cellphone into the girl’s backyard on July 2, 2020, according to the attorney’s office. That’s when he was arrested.
Inside a hotel room Leonard had booked, authorities found restraints, including flex cuffs and metal handcuffs, duct tape, electrical tape, sex toys and lubricants, prosecutors said.
Leonard told investigators he had similarly traveled to Oklahoma in 2018, where prosecutors said he sexually assaulted a 16-year-old.
His phone had videos of that assault, according to prosecutors.
For the charge of production of child pornography, Leonard faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison and up to 30 years in prison, the attorney’s office said.
He faces up to 30 years in prison for the charge of interstate travel to engage in sex acts with a minor, according to prosecutors.
With his plea agreement, prosecutors and Leonard’s defense counsel have agreed to recommend he be sentenced to 20 years in prison, the attorney’s office said.
Prosecutors will also argue in support of supervised release for the rest of his life to follow his prison sentence, according to the attorney’s office.
New Port Richey is about 35 miles northwest of Tampa. – The Charlotte Observer/Tribune News Service
