Source
PHOENIX, Ariz. Media www.rajawalisiber.com– On August 24, 2022, Kyle Matthew Thompson, 47, of Mohave Valley, Arizona, was sentenced by United States District Judge David G. Campbell to 30 years in prison. On February 24, 2022, a jury found Thompson guilty on two counts of Travel with Intent to Engage in Illicit Sexual Conduct with two 15-year-old girls, and two counts of Commission of Sex Offense by Registered Sex Offender.
Thompson, a registered sex offender, had a prior 2013 conviction for Attempted Sexual Exploitation of a Minor from Mohave County Superior Court. In November 2016, shortly after his release from state prison, Thompson posed as a Hollywood movie producer and used his social media account to contact the two 15-year-old victims, Victim 1 and Victim 2. On December 26, 2016, Thompson departed on a cross-country trip to meet the minor victims. Thompson engaged in sexual intercourse with Victim 1 the morning after his arrival, and then socialized with the victims, their friends, and their unsuspecting parents. He also repeatedly requested sex acts with Victim 2. Before and during his travel, Thompson engaged in sexually explicit calls and messages with both victims. Thompson impersonated a famous actor in an effort to entice Victim 2 and encourage Victim 2 to engage in sex acts with him. Thompson photoshopped himself into celebrity photos and shared them to his social media account to further bolster his fame-adjacent persona.
“Social media makes children particularly vulnerable to sexual predators,” said United States Attorney Gary Restaino. “This sentence should send a powerful message to anyone who travels with the intent to abuse young people.”
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.
The case was investigated by the Talladega County Sheriff’s Office, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Phoenix and Birmingham), with the assistance of the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, the Mohave County Sheriff’s Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the United States Postal Inspection Service (Birmingham, Alabama) and the Customs and Border Protection’s U.S. Border Patrol. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Gayle L. Helart and Alanna R. Kennedy, District of Arizona, Phoenix, handled the prosecution.
CASE NUMBER: CR-18-08162-PHX-PCT-DGC
RELEASE NUMBER: 2022-151_Thompson