Source: United States Department of Justice News
ST. LOUIS – U.S. District Judge Sarah E. Pitlyk on Friday sentenced a St. Louis County man to five years and four months in prison for traveling to Springfield, Ill. in 2019 to have sex with a 15-year-old.
Wesley Kimble, now 25, will also be on supervised release for life.
Kimble met the 15-year-old via an online dating site in the fall of 2019 and began exchanging messages with the teen, with many of the messages being sexual in nature. In December of 2019, Kimble drove to Springfield to pick up the victim. On the return trip, Kimble engaged in sexual activity with the victim, he admitted in a plea agreement. Kimble also provided the victim with illegal drugs and engaged in unprotected sex with the victim once they arrived at his apartment in St. Louis County.
Kimble pleaded guilty in November to a charge of interstate transport of a minor for the purpose of engaging in illicit sexual conduct.
In court Friday, the victim’s mother read a statement in which the victim said she’d called Kimble after escaping from a Springfield hotel room where she’d been victimized by another man. Kimble took her phone and backpack away, drove her to his apartment and locked her in there.
The victim’s mother said the mental and emotion scars Kimble inflicted on her daughter “can’t be measured and have no end in sight.”
In addition to the prison time, Judge Pitlyk ordered Kimble to undergo drug, mental health and sex offender treatment.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.