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Description: Tulsa, Oklahoma criminal lawyer represented Defendant charged with attempted coercion and/or enticement of a minor.

Thomas Daniel Johonson, age 49, of Sand Springs, Oklahoma was convicted in February, 2022, for engaging in a sexualized relationship with a minor and attempting to coerce or entire the minor in sexual activity.

This fraudulent mentor’s illicit acts were brought to light in federal court,” said U.S. Attorney Clint Johnson. “Make no mistake, Thomas Johnson’s interaction with this young man was calculated, predatory, and criminal. He will now spend more than a decade in prison to account for his conduct.”

Johnson knew the victim’s family and volunteered as a youth leader at a church both families attended. Johnson was known as a mentor to adolescent and teenage boys, so the victim’s family asked him to mentor their child.

On Aug. 15, 2020, the victim’s mother discovered numerous sexually explicit texts, memes and images sent to her child by Johnson and confronted the defendant. Then both parents contacted law enforcement and turned their child’s phone in to authorities. Further examination of the phone revealed thousands of messages exchanged between Johnson and the victim, dating back to March 2019.

During the trial, prosecutors contended that Johnson engaged in a sexualized relationship using text messaging when the minor was 11, 12 and 13 years old, thus committing the crime of attempted coercion and enticement of a minor.

The United States argued Johnson groomed the victim, first gaining the victim’s trust and friendship. Johnson regularly encouraged the victim and called the victim a stud, sexy beast, and made sexual references and jokes.

Then the sexualized relationship increasingly involved the exchange of memes and comments with references to oral sex, penises, ejaculation and more. Johnson eventually told the victim about several sexual experiences he (Johnson) had taken part in. The victim testified that at first, he felt the exchange of texts and memes were jokes, but he grew increasingly uncomfortable as the defendant began routinely making comments about the victim’s penis and physical appearance, as well as implying that he was sexually attracted to the victim.

Johnson repeatedly asked the minor to send pictures of his penis or “nudes.” The defendant further suggested in messages that he could give the victim oral sex or vice versa. A few days before the communications were discovered, Johnson sent the victim a selfie of himself with a banana in his mouth simulating oral sex and during the texting exchange, asked the victim if he “could handle it,” implicitly offering to perform oral sex on the minor victim.

The victim testified that he believed Johnson would have acted on his (Johnson’s) requests had the victim complied.

At trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Gallant noted Johnson wrapped himself in “a cloak of authority” and took advantage of the victim’s trust. He stated that mentors set age-appropriate boundaries with children. Instead, Johnson, a man in his forties, repeatedly crossed those boundaries by sending a “cesspool of memes and messages” that degraded and sexualized a vulnerable boy.

The Sand Springs Police Department conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jeffrey A. Gallant and Valeria G. Luster prosecuted the case.

18:2422(b): Attempted Coercion and Enticement of a Minor; FORFEITURE ALLEGATION: 18:2428 Child Enticement Forfeiture
(1)

(b) Whoever, using the mail or any facility or means of interstate or foreign commerce, or within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States knowingly persuades, induces, entices, or coerces any individual who has not attained the age of 18 years, to engage in prostitution or any sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title and imprisoned not less than 10 years or for life.

Outcome: Defendant was sentenced to 135 months' in prison, followed by 10 years of supervised release and assessed $100.00.

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