Tampa, FL - United States Attorney A. Lee Bentley, III announces that Alecia Kay Dotson (46, Lakeland) has pleaded guilty to attempted child enticement. She faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years, up to life, in federal prison.
According to court documents, on June 28, 2015, officers from the Lakeland Police Department responded to a call from the mother of an 11-year-old boy. The mother had viewed her son’s text messages, saw sexual texts, and confronted her son. The child advised that the text messages were from Dotson, his teacher at Highlands Grove Elementary School. Law enforcement officers took over the child’s cellphone and continued communicating with Dotson. During her previous communications with the child, and again with law enforcement posing as the child, Dotson made graphic sexual comments and discussed performing specific sexual acts with the child. Dotson made arrangements to meet the child at the movies where she planned to engage in sex acts with him in her car. The boy told the officers he was nervous and scared of Dotson.
On June 30, 2015, when Dotson arrived at the Lakeland movie theater to meet the child, she was arrested. Officers located a pink.380 caliber semi-automatic pistol located inside her vehicle’s glove compartment. During her interview with law enforcement, Dotson explained that she had started out in a “caring" relationship with the child and was like a “mother" figure to him. She stated that the relationship had progressed to a “crush" and then to “romance."
This case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations and the Lakeland Police Department. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Amanda C. Kaiser.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by United States Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
