UNITED STATES/MEXICO
Cleveland.com
By Associated Press
on January 30, 2016
SAN DIEGO — An Ohio seminary student was arrested Friday in California on allegations that he intended to travel to Mexico to have sex with a toddler or baby.
Joel A. Wright, 23, of Columbus was taken into custody Friday after getting off a plane at at Lindberg Field in San Diego, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement.
Wright had written emails to an undercover agent posing as a travel guide that he wanted to adopt or purchase a female child under age 3 in Tijuana, Mexico, for the purposes of having sex with her, authorities said.
Authorities alleged that Wright planned to meet a friend of the tour guide in San Diego, then accompany the guide to Tijuana, where he would go to a hotel and be brought female infants, the San Diego Union Tribune reported.
He’s scheduled to be arraigned Monday, and an after-hours call to determine whether he has an attorney wasn’t immediately returned. He faces two felony counts: travelling with the intent to engage in a sexual act with a minor, and attempting to engage in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign country.
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