BENTON, Ill. – A man from Illinois and another from Kentucky were sentenced in federal court on Tuesday after being caught in an online sting aimed at child predators.
Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Illinois said Timmy Wayne Smith, 59, and Joseph Randall Edmaiston, 37, pleaded guilty to one count of attempted enticement of a minor.
In August 2020, Smith and Edmaiston met an undercover agent online posing as a 15-year-old girl. The two men discussed meeting the teen in order to have sex.
The men drove to a house in Marion, Illinois, for the sexual encounter, but police met them there and arrested them.
A U.S. District Court judge sentenced each man to 10 years in federal prison. Smith and Edmaiston will also serve five years of supervised release after leaving prison.
