Christopher Chassey, Enticement of a Minor for Illicit Sexual Activity, Rhode Island 2016

A 49-year-old Massachusetts man has admitted to enticing a minor for illicit sexual activity, with a federal court in Rhode Island finding him guilty of the crime.

Christopher Chassey, of Plymouth, Mass., pleaded guilty in federal court in Providence, R.I., to one count of enticement to travel in interstate to engage in illicit sexual activity. Appearing before U.S. District Court Chief Judge William E. Smith, Chassey admitted to the court that he sent hundreds of emails and mailed $100 in cash to a person he believed to be a 14-year-old male in Rhode Island in an effort to entice him to travel to Massachusetts to engage in illicit sexual activity.

The guilty plea was announced by United States Attorney Peter F. Neronha, Colonel Steven G. O’Donnell, Superintendent of the Rhode Island State Police, and Shelly Binkowski, Inspector in Charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Boston Division.

According to court documents, in April 2015, a member of the Rhode Island Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force observed an online advertisement from a person seeking a young male to engage with in illicit sexual activity in exchange for a cash payment. An ICAC law enforcement agent posing as a 14-year-old male from Rhode Island answered the ad, and, over the next eight months, engaged in an exchange of hundreds of emails, many of which were sexually explicit.

Chassey mailed cash to the supposed 14-year-old on at least three occasions, with the third mailing, $100 in cash, arriving on December 4, 2015, to be used to purchase a bus ticket to Plymouth, Mass., so the two could meet. Chassey was arrested on December 17, 2015, charged in a federal criminal complaint with enticement to travel in interstate to engage in illicit sexual activity.

Chassey is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Court Chief Judge William E. Smith on October 14, 2016.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Gerard B. Sullivan.

The Rhode Island ICAC Task Force is comprised of members of the Rhode Island State Police Computer Crimes Unit, along with detectives from the Coventry, Warwick, North Smithfield, Cranston, East Providence, North Kingstown, Portsmouth and Woonsocket Police Departments, and agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations and United States Postal Inspection Services.

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