18 U.S.C. § 2422(b) — Coercion & Enticement of a Minor

These cases are among the most severely punished in the federal system, and they almost always begin the same way: an online conversation with someone who was never a child.

The attempt provision is what makes that work. An adult officer posing as a minor is sufficient, because the crime is complete when the defendant takes a substantial step toward persuading the person he believed to be a minor.

What the statute says

18 U.S.C. § 2422(b) punishes whoever, using the mail or any facility or means of interstate or foreign commerce, "knowingly persuades, induces, entices, or coerces any individual who has not attained the age of 18 years, to engage in prostitution or any sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense, or attempts to do so."

The elements

1. Use of a facility of interstate commerce — the internet, a phone, or an app;
2. Knowing persuasion, inducement, enticement, or coercion, or an attempt at it;
3. Directed at a person under 18, or a person the defendant believed to be under 18; and
4. Toward sexual activity for which someone could be criminally charged.

Why no real minor is needed

Because § 2422(b) expressly punishes attempts, factual impossibility is not a defense. Where the person on the other end was an adult officer or a civilian decoy, the offense is still complete if the defendant believed he was communicating with a minor and took a substantial step.

What counts as a substantial step is genuinely litigated — travel, arranging a meeting, sending explicit material, or persistent grooming conversation. Mere expression of interest, without more, may fall short, and the line between preparation and a substantial step is a real battleground.

Persuading a minor, not committing an act

This is the most misunderstood feature of the statute. The prohibited object is the persuasion or enticement itself — causing a minor to assent — not the underlying sexual act. A defendant can be convicted without ever intending to meet, and conversely, an intention to meet without any effort to persuade may not satisfy the statute.

Where the government's evidence shows fantasy role-play, or an adult-to-adult conversation about a hypothetical, the question of whether the defendant intended to persuade an actual minor to assent to anything is where the defense lives.

Penalty range

A ten-year mandatory minimum and up to life. There is no safety valve for this offense. A conviction also carries a lifetime of collateral consequences: sex offender registration under SORNA, supervised release of at least five years and frequently life, and restrictions on residence, employment, and internet use.

Guidelines calculations run through U.S.S.G. § 2G1.3, with enhancements for misrepresenting identity, for use of a computer, and for the age of the purported victim — which frequently push the range above the statutory minimum.

Entrapment: available, and difficult

Entrapment requires government inducement and absence of predisposition. In sting cases the inducement element is often arguable — who raised sex first, who raised age, who persisted after hesitation, how many times the agent re-initiated after the defendant disengaged.

Predisposition is where the defense usually fails, because the government will offer search history, prior chats, and stored material to establish it. Entrapment is nonetheless worth developing carefully: the full chat logs, in sequence and unexcerpted, sometimes tell a materially different story than the government's selected excerpts.

Related and often more productive arguments include sentencing manipulation and sentencing entrapment — that agents deliberately steered the conversation toward facts that trigger enhancements or a lower purported age.

How these cases are built

Most begin on apps or in chatrooms with an officer presenting as a 13-to-15-year-old. The conversation is preserved in full. Charges frequently accompany related counts — transfer of obscene material to a minor under § 1470, travel with intent under § 2423(b), and CSAM offenses arising from a device search.

Device forensics matter enormously, both for what they show and for whether the search that produced them was lawful. A suppression motion is often the most consequential filing in the case.

Related statutes and pages

18 U.S.C. § 2423 — transportation and travel offenses · Federal CSAM offenses · Federal sex crimes · Federal child sexual assault