Date: 03-03-2017

Case Style:

Case Number: 0:16-cr-60157-DTKH

Judge: Daniel T.K. Hurley

Court: United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida (Miami-Dade County)

Plaintiff's Attorney: Austin M. Berry

Defendant's Attorney: Bruce Howard Lehr

Description: Miami, FL - U.S. Secret Service Officer Pleads Guilty to Enticement of a Minor and Attempting to Send Obscene Images to a Minor

A Church Hill, Maryland resident pleaded guilty today in federal court to one count of enticement of a minor to engage in sexual activity and one count of attempting to transfer obscene materials to a minor, announced U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer of the Southern District of Florida and Acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Blanco of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

Lee Robert Moore, 38, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Daniel T. K. Hurley of the Southern District of Florida. Moore was employed by the U.S. Secret Service-Uniformed Division and was assigned to the White House at the time of his arrest on Nov. 9, 2015, and has remained in custody since that time. Moore has since been terminated from his Secret Service position.

According to admissions made in connection with his plea, Moore maintained a profile on the social media application “Meet24,” which provides a mobile-based platform for exchanging digital images, as well as voice and text messages. Delaware State Police Detectives with the Delaware Child Predator Task Force created a profile on this site, posing as a 14-year-old girl, with whom Moore engaged in a number of online chat sessions, via the “Meet24” and “Kik” mobile apps over a two-month period, including while Moore was at work. A number of the online chats between Moore and the undercover officers posing as a female minor were sexual in nature and, on several occasions, Moore sent pictures of himself, including one sexually explicit image.

According to the plea documents, after his arrest, law enforcement discovered that Moore had communicated with a minor in Florida. Moore admitted that in those communications, he sent sexually explicit images of himself and enticed the minor to send sexually explicit photos of herself as well. Moore engaged in the same type of behavior with a 14-year-old girl in Texas and another 17-year-old girl in Missouri. Moore requested that his federal charges in Delaware be transferred to the Southern District of Florida so that he could plead guilty to both charges at one time.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations and the Delaware Child Predator Task Force investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Corey Steinberg of the Southern District of Florida and Trial Attorney Austin M. Berry of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) are prosecuting the case.

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 CEOS, 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 http://www.justice.gov/psc.

Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at www.flsd.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov.

Outcome: Guilty

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