A 40-year-old man from Ladson has been sentenced to 19 years in federal prison for attempting to entice a minor to engage in sexual activity online.
It comes after members of the South Carolina Attorney General’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force conducted an undercover investigation into online sexual predators.
According to the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina, an officer used an undercover online persona of a 13-year-old girl as part of the operation.
According to officials, Joseph Daniel Bair of Ladson responded to the persona’s social media ad and had sexually explicit conversations with the undercover officer, including expressing a desire to engage in various sex acts with the alleged 13-year-old girl.
Bair drove from Ladson to a predetermined location in Charleston County to meet the girl and engage in illicit sexual conduct with her, according to a USAO news release. When Bair arrived, he was met by law enforcement officers and taken into custody.
“At the time of the offense, Bair was on the South Carolina Sex Offender Registry due to a 2009 state conviction for criminal solicitation of a minor.” “Law enforcement officers also discovered that Bair was reporting to sex offender registry officials that he lived in Charleston when he actually lived in Ladson,” the USAO stated.
Bair was sentenced to 230 months in federal prison, followed by a lifetime of court-ordered supervision.
