Larry Richard Dickerson, Attempting to Sexually Coerce a Minor, Ohio 2020

A child sex offender who was on parole supervision at the time of his latest offense has been sentenced to 15 years and 6 months in prison for attempting to sexually coerce a minor to engage in unlawful sexual activity.

Larry Richard Dickerson, 56, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Columbus, Ohio, to 186 months in prison and a lifetime of supervised release for his crime. The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge Sarah D. Morrison.

The crime occurred in May 2020, when officers with the Franklin County Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force were conducting undercover online chats to identify individuals who were attempting to solicit and engage in illegal sexual activity with minors.

An officer posing as a juvenile on a social media application received a message from Dickerson and the two became in regular contact. Dickerson requested nude photos of the purported teenager and asked her to send a shirtless picture with the name ‘Rick’ written across her chest so that he could be sure she was not a ‘cop.’

In a phone call with the undercover officer, Dickerson asked numerous questions about the supposed 15-year-old’s sexual history and preferences. The defendant asked the undercover officer to describe what her pubic region looked like. The two made a plan to meet to engage in illicit sexual conduct.

Dickerson has two prior child sex offense convictions. In 2002, he was sentenced to 21 months in prison in the District of South Carolina on a child pornography charge. In 2018, he was convicted in the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas with three counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, based on his communications with a 13-year-old girl via MeetMe, and his subsequent meeting with and sexual abuse of the child.

The case was brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio and was handled by Senior Litigation Counsel Heather A. Hill.

The arrest occurred in the Franklin County area, and Dickerson was subsequently sentenced in U.S. District Court in Columbus, Ohio, on [May 2020].

The exact date of the sentencing was not specified in the press release, but it occurred after Dickerson’s arrest.

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