Williams, a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement supervisor, was charged with attempting to entice a person named 'Rebecca' to have sex with him between July 23-26, 2022, despite her repeatedly stating she was thirteen years old. 'Rebecca' was actually a fictional persona created by Detective Eduardo Martinez in an undercover operation targeting individuals seeking sex with minors. Williams exchanged nearly 100 text messages with 'Rebecca,' negotiated payment of up to $2,500 for sex, and drove two hours to meet her at an Othello, Washington hotel, where he was arrested with $4,075 cash, generic Viagra, and two bottles of vodka.
The Ninth Circuit panel rejected Williams's primary challenge to the sufficiency of evidence under 18 U.S.C. § 2422(b), which criminalizes knowingly persuading, inducing, enticing, or coercing minors to engage in sexual activity. As Judge McKeown wrote, 'Williams's conduct more than crossed that line' between preparation and attempt, noting that he 'initiate[d] conversation with' someone representing herself as a minor and 'propose[d] a rendezvous to perform' sexual acts. The court found compelling evidence that Williams used 'money as a negotiating tool to persuade' the supposed minor to have sex with him.
The court delivered particularly sharp language when rejecting Williams's core legal argument. 'To adopt his proposed gloss on the statute would be to require the government to show that the defendant's purpose was to change the minor's will, and not merely to confirm or exploit it,' McKeown wrote. 'Whatever intuitive appeal Williams's interpretation may have in other circumstances, it finds no foothold in the language of Section 2422(b).' The panel emphasized that the four verbs in the statute 'reflect Congress's effort to capture a range of influencing conduct, which is criminal whether the minor was willing or resistant.'
Williams was originally convicted by a jury in the Eastern District of Washington, where U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice presided over the trial. Williams's primary defense was that he never believed 'Rebecca' was actually a minor, testifying that 'verification of age [was] paramount to' him. He claimed he obtained her phone number from a different Craigslist post that didn't mention her age, though the government argued that post never existed and only Williams testified to seeing it.
The court dismissed Williams's Brady claims regarding allegedly missing evidence, finding he failed to demonstrate the denial would affect his substantial rights. Williams argued the government's failure to preserve a final published version of the decoy advertisement violated his due process rights, but as Judge McKeown noted, 'Williams cannot show that the Warning in Moses Post was material because he maintains that he never saw it.' The panel found that even if Williams initially obtained the phone number from a different source, 'he still carried on a conversation and tried to meet with 'Rebecca' for the purpose of having sex, despite her repeatedly telling him that she was thirteen.'
However, the panel sided with Williams on his sentencing challenge, with the government conceding error. The district court had applied a two-level obstruction of justice enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 3C.1.1 based on alleged trial perjury, but failed to make the required specific findings. 'The Supreme Court has instructed that if a defendant objects to a sentence enhancement resulting from her trial testimony, a district court must review the evidence and make independent findings necessary to establish a willful impediment to or obstruction of justice,' McKeown wrote, citing United States v. Dunnigan.
The case highlights ongoing tensions in prosecuting online predator cases where defendants claim they didn't believe the supposed minor's age. The Ninth Circuit's ruling clarifies that Section 2422(b) doesn't require proof that defendants sought to psychologically manipulate unwilling victims, but rather encompasses 'a range of influencing conduct.' For practitioners defending similar cases, the decision underscores that expressing disbelief about a victim's age while continuing to negotiate sexual encounters provides little refuge from conviction.