Matthew Peters, Attempted Enticement of a Minor, New York 2020

A 49-year-old Schenectady man has been sentenced to 300 months in prison for attempting to entice a minor to engage in unlawful sexual activity.

Matthew Peters, of Schenectady, New York, was sentenced by Senior United States District Judge Gary L. Sharpe in Albany federal court.

Peters, a registered sex offender, was charged with attempting to entice a minor to engage in unlawful sexual activity and committing a felony offense involving a minor while required to register as a sex offender.

As part of his guilty plea, Peters admitted to initiating and exchanging sexually explicit text messages with someone he believed to be a 14-year-old child between October 2 and October 7, 2020.

After learning the apparent child was 14 years old, Peters repeatedly asked the minor for 'nudes' and 'live' pictures. He also asked the minor to meet him on multiple occasions and discussed engaging in various sexual acts with the minor when they met.

Peters arrived at the prearranged meeting location near Albany on October 7, 2020, where he was encountered by law enforcement officers and arrested.

Peters was a registered sex offender at the time of the offense. He had three prior sex offense convictions, two felony convictions in 2000 and one in 2012, each involving the sexual abuse of a child he had met online.

In addition to his prison sentence, Peters will serve a life term of post-imprisonment supervised release. He will again have to register as a sex offender upon his release from prison.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndny/pr/schenectady-county-sex-offender-sentenced-300-months-attempted-enticement-minor