U. S. Department of Justice

U. S. Attorney’s Office

Southern District of Texas

22 YEAR OLD CONVICTED OF TRANSPORTING A LEAGUE CITY MINOR
ACROSS STATE LINES TO ENGAGE IN SEXUAL ACTIVITY SENTENCED

GALVESTON, TX - Paul Lance Cameron Bennett, 24, of Pilot Point, Texas, and formerly from Walla Walla, Washington, has been sentenced to prison for transporting a 13-year-old League City girl he met over the Internet across state lines for the intent to engage in sexual activity, United States Attorney Don DeGabrielle announced today. Bennett was found guilty in April 2006 by a jury's verdict of the interstate transportation of a minor charge with intent to engage in sexual activity for which he could be charged with a criminal offense and kidnapping. However, U.S. District Judge Samuel B. Kent, who presided over the trial, granted Bennett's motion and acquitted Bennett of the kidnapping charge. The jury found Bennett not guilty of a third count of enticing a minor via the Internet to engage in sexual explicit conduct.

At a hearing this morning in federal court in Galveston, Judge Kent sentenced Bennett to 81 months in federal prison without parole and ordered Bennett to participate in a sex offender treatment program. Telling Bennett that his conduct of subjecting the 13-year-old girl to unprotected sex, abandoning his car to hitchhike across the country from Oklahoma to California, and lying to his mother and other relatives about the girl's age, proved Bennett not only knew the girl was only 13, but showed him to be both "deceitful and dangerous." Judge Kent further ordered Bennett to be supervised following his release from prison for a period of ten years. During this term of supervised release, Bennett must register as a sex offender. Granting the minor's mother's request that he have no contact with her daughter, Judge Kent also ordered Bennett to have no contact with the minor before she reaches the age of 21.

Testimony presented by the United States during the four-day trial earlier this year proved that Bennett, 22 years of age at the time, left League City, Texas, with the 13-year-old victim on the evening of October 25, 2004. They drove to Huntsville, Texas, where they spent the night. The following day, Bennett drove to the Denton, Texas, area and spent the night. On Wednesday, October 27, 2004, Bennett drove into Oklahoma and called his mother. Bennett's mother, having already been contacted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), told Bennett that the FBI was looking for him and the car he was driving and that they knew the girl was 13 years old. Bennett's mother gave Bennett a Texas City FBI agent's phone number to contact. Bennett never contacted the FBI agent nor any other law enforcement authority; instead, Bennett abandoned his car at a truck stop in Oklahoma and he and the 13-year-old hitchhiked to California.

The victim testified during the trial that she had sex with Bennett their first night in Huntsville, Texas, and again during their visits to Las Vegas and San Francisco. DNA evidence, introduced at trial, confirmed her testimony regarding the sexual activity.

It is a crime in Nevada and California to engage in sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old.

Bennett was located and arrested on November 24, 2004, in San Francisco, California by agents of the FBI. The 13-year-old victim was also located in San Francisco and returned to her mother.

Bennett and the victim first communicated by sending emails while Bennett was living in Walla Walla, Washington, and developed an Internet romance. At today's hearing the victim told the court she had "moved on" with her life.

Bennett has been in federal custody without bond since his arrest in San Francisco.

The safe return of the victim and the arrest of Bennett is the result of an intensive investigation conducted by agents of the Texas City office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the League City Police Department. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Robert Stabe.