Stephen Ardrey, Sex Trafficking, Rhode Island 2014

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Stephen Ardrey, 30, of Springfield, Mo., was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Providence today to 14 years in federal prison for transporting a 17-year-old female from the Boston area into Rhode Island with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.

Ardrey was arrested on September 12, 2013, while walking with the victim along a Coventry, R.I., highway three days after the victim was reported missing from her Medfield, Mass., home.

At sentencing, U.S. District Court Judge John J. McConnell, Jr., also ordered that Ardrey serve a term of 10 years supervised release upon completion of his incarceration and that he register as a sex offender.

Ardrey pleaded guilty on February 26, 2014, to one count each of trafficking a person under the age of 18 and transportation of a minor with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct.

According to information presented to the court, Ardrey met the victim in an online chat room in December 2012. Over time, communications with the victim online, via email and through an online service called ‘TextNow’ intensified in frequency and became sexually explicit.

United States Attorney Peter F. Neronha commented, “The message from today’s sentencing is simple: if you engage in human trafficking, if you engage in sex trafficking in this state, we are going to get our victim to a safe place and then we are going to come after you with all of our resources.”

The case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, the West Greenwich Police Department, the Coventry Police Department, the Coventry Police Chief Richard N. Ramsay, the Warwick Police Department, the Warwick Police Chief Colonel Stephen M. McCartney, and the Medfield Police Department, the Medfield Police Chief Robert E. Meaney, Jr.

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