FBI Washington Field Office Press Release:

Man Pleads Guilty to Traveling into the District of Columbia to Engage in Illicit Sexual Conduct with a Minor

U.S. Attorney’s OfficeApril 29, 2013

District of Columbia(202) 514-7566

WASHINGTON—George G. Kahl, 42, of Alexandria, Virginia, pled guilty today to traveling interstate to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor, announced U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen, Jr.; Valerie Parlave, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office; and Cathy L. Lanier, Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).

Kahl entered the guilty plea in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The Honorable Rosemary M. Collyer is to sentence him on July 26, 2013. Kahl faces a maximum sentence of 30 years of imprisonment as well as a fine of $250,000.

According to the government’s evidence, on February 9, 2013, Kahl contacted a man he believed to be the father of an under-aged female child on a social networking site. That man turned out to be an undercover officer with the FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force. Over the next few days, Kahl engaged in graphic online e-mail and text message conversations with the undercover officer. During these conversations, Kahl arranged with the undercover officer to meet for the purpose of engaging in sexual acts with the purported child. On February 22, 2013, Kahl traveled from Alexandria to Washington, D.C., for that purpose and was arrested.

This case was brought as part of the Department of Justice’s Project Safe Childhood initiative and investigated by the FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force, which includes members of the FBI’s Washington Field Office and MPD. In February 2006, the Attorney General created Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative designed to protect children from online exploitation and abuse. Led by the U.S. Attorney’s Offices, 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 identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.

In announcing the guilty plea, U.S. Attorney Machen, Assistant Director Parlave, and Chief Lanier praised the MPD detectives and special agents of the FBI Child Exploitation Task Force. They also commended Assistant U.S. Attorney Ari Redbord, who is prosecuting the case.