CORPUS CHRISTI, TX—Less than two months
following his indictment, Corpus Christi resident Anthony Michael Puckett, 41,
has entered a plea of guilty to online coercion and enticement of a child,
United States Attorney Kenneth Magidson announced today. Puckett was indicted
July 11, 2012.
Today, he admitted he used a facility
and means of interstate and foreign commerce—a telephone and a computer
connected to the Internet—in an attempt to coerce and entice a minor to engage
in sexual activity. Puckett began communicating with a then 14-year-old female
on Mocospace in 2010. The communications led to a meeting between Puckett and
his victim in Laredo, Texas, where they engaged in prohibited sexual activity.
He further admitted he used the Internet and/or a telephone to communicate with
the victim to further the relationship and to arrange several meetings in Laredo.
Puckett has been in custody, where he
will remain pending his sentencing hearing, set for December 4, 2012. At that
time, he faces a mandatory minimum of 10 years and up to life imprisonment.
The FBI was the lead investigative
agency with assistance from the Corpus Christi Police Department’s Internet
Crimes Against Children Task Force and the Laredo Police Department.
This case, prosecuted by Assistant
United States Attorney Lance Duke, 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.”
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