PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Joshua T. Robinson, 36, of Colchester, Conn., was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Providence, R.I., on Thursday to 46 months in federal prison, followed by 10 years supervised release, for traveling interstate to engage in illicit sexual activity with a girl he believed to be 14 years-old.
Robinson’s sentence, imposed by U.S. District Court Judge John J. McConnell, Jr., is announced by United States Attorney Peter F. Neronha and Colonel Steven G. O’Donnell, Superintendent of the Rhode Island State Police.
Robinson, arrested on September 4, 2015, by members of the Rhode Island State Police Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force, pleaded guilty on Feb. 18, 2016, to travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct.
At the time of his guilty plea, Robinson admitted to the court that beginning in late August 2015, he engaged in a series of increasingly sexually explicit emails with a person he believed to be a 14 year- old girl living in Rhode Island. Robinson admitted to the court that he arranged with the young teenager to meet her in Rhode Island where he would engage in sexual activity with her in exchange for a new iPhone. However, the person purporting in the emails to be the 14 year-old girl was, in fact, members of the Rhode Island State Police ICAC Task Force.
According to court documents, on September 4, 2015, Robinson’s first attempt to travel to Rhode Island to meet with the teenager was interrupted when a tire on his vehicle went flat. After having the tire repaired, he set out a second time to meet the young teenager. Robinson was arrested inside a retail store in Cranston, R.I., where he was to have met with the girl, purchase an iPhone for her and then travel to another location to engage in sexual activity.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney John P. McAdams.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
