A Cumberland man and Marine veteran was sentenced to 20 months in prison Tuesday, after he traveled to Maine to have sex with a 14-year-old girl in 2014, prosecutors said.
William McNeill, 23, pleaded guilty in a Portland, Maine court in March to a charge of travelling interstate to engage in sexual conduct with a minor.
While McNeill was stationed in North Carolina with the U.S. in the fall of 2014, he met the 14-year-old Maine girl on an online dating website. The two exchanged information and messages for a few months, according to court documents.
While the girl originally told McNeill she was older, she eventually told him she was 14, according to Michael Conley, the prosecutor for the case.
Despite knowing she was underage, McNeill continued to send messages that were “sexual in nature,” and naked photos of himself to the girl, according to court documents.
In October 2014, McNeill told the girl he was “planning to come to Maine to ‘have bedroom fun’ with her and that he wanted to ‘have sex,'” according to court documents.
Within the following days, they met up and had sex in McNeill’s car, according to the documents.
Police became aware of the situation when the teenager told a school counselor she was afraid she was pregnant. The counselor shared this information with police, as is required by Maine law, Conley said.
On top of his 20 months in prison, McNeill was sentenced to five years of supervised release, with restricted access to computers and the Internet. He will also have to register as a sex offender, according to a news release fromUnited States Attorney Thomas E. Delahanty II’s office.
–jtempera@providencejournal.com
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On Twitter: @jacktemp
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