Convicted sex offender takes his niece on a road trip to sexually abuse her, authorities say

A man told his niece he would divorce her aunt to marry her before sexually assaulting her on a road trip from Tennessee to New Mexico, federal prosecutors said.

The 56-year-old uncle from Sunbright is a registered sex offender who has been accused of sex crimes against other children, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee.

His niece told investigators that he drove her away from Tennessee between Dec. 29, 2019, and Jan. 2, 2020, and forced her to perform sexual acts in his truck while driving, prosecutors said.

In the latest development in the case, the man was sentenced on May 11 to life in prison plus 120 months. He was charged with enticement of a minor to engage in sexual conduct, transportation of a minor to engage in sexual conduct, a crime against a minor by a person required to register as a sex offender, and escape, prosecutors announced on May 15.

To protect the victim’s identity, McClatchy News is not releasing the man’s name.

After his arrest, he tried unsuccessfully to escape from a hospital where he was undergoing heart surgery while in federal custody, officials said.

McClatchy News contacted his lawyers for comment on May 15 but did not immediately receive a response.

The case dates to July 2019, when the man’s minor niece, whose age was not provided, was living with him and his wife, prosecutors said. Officials did not say why the niece was living with them.

At some point, the man began secretly sending hundreds of messages to his niece using a “secret cell phone” he had bought her, officials said. Her mother had no idea he had given her a phone, and they exchanged nearly 3,000 text messages, an earlier news release said.

The man told the girl that “he loved her and only wanted to be with her” and promised to divorce his wife so that they could get married, according to prosecutors.

He then took her on a road trip to New Mexico to sexually abuse her, the press release states.

The Morgan County Sheriff’s Office received a tip that he was traveling out of the country with a child, the earlier press release said.

According to prosecutors, he was eventually caught and charged with rape.

His life sentence will be followed by lifetime probation and he will be required to “register on the state sex offender registry,” officials said.

Sunbright is located about 135 miles east of Nashville.

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