Child sex sting nets Henderson man in Arkansas

By John Lovett, Times Record, Fort Smith, Ark. (TNS)

Friday, Nov. 18, 2016 | 1:06 p.m.

A 50-year-old Henderson, Nev., man who traveled to Fort Smith, Ark., in January to have sex with a minor was sentenced to 30 years in prison in a case brought to the U.S. District Court as part of Project Safe Childhood.

David Harper was sentenced by Chief Judge P.K. Holmes III at the District Court in Fort Smith on one count of knowingly crossing state lines with intent to engage in sex with a person under 12 years old.

Harper made contact with an undercover Fort Smith Police Department officer on a profile on a website "intended for users interested in discussing taboo fetishes," the plea agreement states.

Kenneth Elser, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, noted in a news release Thursday that Harper was indicted by a federal grand jury in January and pleaded guilty to the crime in June. According to the plea agreement, Harper made contact in 2015 with a detective posing as a single mother of two fictitious children, a 9-year-old daughter and an 8-year-old son. In August 2015, Harper sent the detective a message on the website asking her "what she was open to and looking for" and the detective replied she was looking for "someone to train [her] daughter."

Harper had a profile on the site under the username "jdholveck."

Over the next few months, Harper and the undercover officer communicated regularly about the sexual acts he wanted to perform and when he would be able to fly in to Fort Smith.

Law enforcement confirmed that an individual lived in Henderson who had the same date of birth as provided by the defendant during communications with the undercover officer. A driver's license photo of Harper matched pictures the defendant sent of himself to the detective.

On Jan. 12, officers confirmed Harper had bought a ticket on American Airlines Flight 5623 from Dallas to Fort Smith. Plans changed when Harper had the flu. On Jan. 25, Harper boarded American Airlines Flight 672 from Las Vegas to Fort Smith and arrived at about 1 p.m., crossing into the Western District of Arkansas. He was identified and taken into custody at the airport. He was read his Miranda rights and admitted to having bought the plane ticket to Arkansas for the purpose of engaging in sex acts with the undercover officers and her two children.

The case was investigated by the Fort Smith Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Ashleigh Buckley prosecuted the case.

Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, was launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. attorneys' offices and their Criminal Division Child Exploitation and Obscenity Sections (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute people who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.