Man allegedly thought he was meeting Kentucky girl, 15, for sex. Police showed up instead
A Missouri man has been charged with trying to meet a 15-year-old Kentucky girl to have sex with her.
A federal grand jury in Lexington indicted Michael Ray Landsness, of Bonne Terre, Missouri, Thursday on one charge of attempting to get a person under age 18 to engage in sexual activity and one charge of traveling across state lines to engage in illicit sexual conduct.
Police arrested Landsness after he texted with a person he thought was a 15-year-old girl and asked her to have sex with him, according to a sworn statement by James F. Bugg, a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations.
The person communicating with Landsness was actually an undercover officer.
The case started after Landsness, 34, allegedly used a social media platform to seek sex with a minor, according to Bugg’s affidavit.
When an undercover officer responded on July 17, Landsness asked the age of the person contacting him and the officer responded that she would turn 16 in a month, the affidavit said.
Over the next several days, Landsness texted the girl sexually explicit messages, according to the affidavit.
Landsness, a truck driver, allegedly asked the girl to meet him for sex in his truck at a rest stop on Interstate 64.
Officers from Homeland Security, the Frankfort Police Department and Kentucky State Police found Landsness in his truck late on July 27, wearing the same orange shirt he had on in a photo he sent the undercover officer earlier that day, according to the affidavit.
When police arrested Landsness, he became emotional and later said he had messed up and that his life was over, Bugg said in the statement. He admitted he’d been communicating with someone under age 18, but then requested an attorney and the interview stopped, according to the affidavit.
Landsness was initially arrested on state charges and was being held in the Franklin County Regional Jail Friday morning.
The charge of interstate travel to engage in illegal sexual conduct is punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
