Tenn. man accused of traveling to Kentucky for sex with a 12-year-old gets prison time
A Tennessee man charged with traveling to Kentucky to have sex with a 12-year-old girl has been sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Noah Austin Foote, 21, of Millington, Tenn., pleaded guilty in federal court to a charge of using a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of making a visual image.
The case started in October 2021 when Kentucky State Police received a report that a girl had gone missing in Leslie County.
Trooper Chadd Daniels said in a citation that the girl’s father told police he heard a loud noise after the girl was supposed to be in bed and found she was gone.
Neighbors reported seeing a white Ford pickup truck leave the area around the time the girl disappeared.
State police put out an alert to be in the lookout for the truck. Police in London pulled over a truck occupied by Foote and the girl, according to the citation.
There was a loaded .38-caliber pistol in the truck and a map showing Foote’s route from Tennessee to Leslie County, the citation said.
Daniels said the girl told him she was running away from home “because she was stressed,” the citation said.
Foote told police he had been communicating with the girl for at least two months on Instagram and that she claimed she was being verbally abused at home, Daniels said in the citation.
Foote said he knew the girl was 12 and that he planned to take her to live with him and his parents.
State police charged Foote with kidnapping. A federal grand jury later indicted him on charges of kidnapping, traveling across a state line with the intent to have sex with a minor, and production of child pornography.
Foote admitted that he sent the girl explicit images and asked her to send him explicit images, which she did, according to his plea agreement.
Federal authorities dropped the kidnapping and interstate travel charges as part of the plea.
U.S. District Judge Claria Horn Boom sentenced Foote on Dec. 20.
