A convicted sex offender is facing the possibility of a 50-year federal prison sentence after he was caught enticing a 13-year-old girl to pose for sexually explicit photos from a Salt Lake City Internet cafe.
Gerald Wheeler, 40, of Salt Lake City was taken into federal custody Wednesday and made an initial appearance in U.S. District Court Friday morning. Wheeler is charged with one count of production of child pornography. Because he has a pervious conviction of attempted forcible sexual abuse of a child, prosecutors say Wheeler faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years in federal prison, and that sentence could go as high as 50 years.
Federal agents reported that the father of a 13-year-old girl caught a man enticing his daughter over the Internet to produce pornographic images of herself. At one point, the man reportedly offered the girl a "modeling contract" if she would travel to New York and engage in sexual conduct.
Agents were able to trace an IP (Internet Protocol) address to an Internet cafe in Salt Lake City. Because the conversations took place around 3 a.m. Mountain Time, the cafe's owner confirmed that the computer would only be accessed by the facility's manager, "Jerry," who was identified as Wheeler.
Law enforcement officials in Illinois reported the girl's father had used a monitoring key logging software, which takes minute-by-minute picture of a computer's activities, to catch the alleged activity.
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