Online solicitation of a minor is a federal crime under 18 U.S.C. § 2422(b): using any electronic communication to knowingly persuade, entice, or coerce someone the sender believes is under eighteen into illegal sexual activity. A conviction carries a mandatory minimum of ten years in federal prison, a maximum of life, and sex offender registration that reshapes nearly every part of a person’s life after release. Prosecutors do not have to prove a real child was ever involved. If the defendant believed the other person was a minor and took steps toward illegal sexual conduct, that is enough.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2422 – Coercion and Enticement
What the Conduct Covers
Section 2422(b) reaches any use of a means of interstate or foreign commerce to try to get someone under eighteen to engage in sexual activity that violates criminal law.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2422 – Coercion and Enticement Social media, messaging apps, gaming platforms, email, dating sites — all qualify, because internet traffic almost always crosses state lines or passes through out-of-state servers. No travel is required. No meeting is required. The crime is complete once the communication itself shows the intent to facilitate illegal sexual conduct with a minor.
The statute also criminalizes attempts, which is what allows law enforcement to run undercover stings. If a person sends messages they believe are going to a thirteen-year-old and the recipient is actually an FBI agent, the “attempts to do so” language still applies. What matters is the defendant’s belief about who they were talking to and what they intended, not who was really on the other end.
When solicitation turns into an attempt to meet, a second charge often comes with it. Traveling across state lines with intent to engage in illegal sexual conduct with a minor is a separate offense under 18 U.S.C. § 2423(b), punishable by up to thirty years.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 US Code 2423 – Transportation of Minors Prosecutors routinely stack it on top of the solicitation count when the defendant drove to a meeting location set up during a sting.
Federal Prison Time, Fines, and Restitution
The ten-year mandatory minimum is the headline. A judge cannot sentence below it, and probation is not an option. The maximum is life. Where a sentence actually lands between those two depends on federal sentencing guidelines, which account for the age of the perceived victim, the nature of the conduct the defendant tried to arrange, and any prior offenses.
Fines can reach $250,000.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 US Code 3571 – Sentence of Fine On top of the fine, courts must order restitution under 18 U.S.C. § 2259 covering the full amount of the victim’s losses, including medical and psychological care, lost income, therapy, and attorneys’ fees.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 US Code 2259 – Mandatory Restitution A court cannot waive restitution because the defendant can’t afford to pay.
Supervised Release After Prison
Prison is followed by supervised release, and for a § 2422 conviction that term runs anywhere from five years to life.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 3583 – Inclusion of a Term of Supervised Release After Imprisonment The PROTECT Act of 2003 expanded this authority specifically for sex offenses involving electronic communication so that judges could impose lifetime supervision where warranted.6United States Congress. S.151 – PROTECT Act 108th Congress (2003-2004)
Conditions are strict. No unsupervised contact with minors. Mandatory participation in sex-offender-specific treatment. Monitoring software on any electronic device, with probation officers authorized to inspect without notice. Periodic polygraph examinations, typically every six months, are standard.7United States Courts. Chapter 3 – Polygraph for Sex Offender Management A failed polygraph alone cannot revoke supervision, but it can trigger closer scrutiny or a new investigation. Violating any condition can send the person back to prison for the remainder of the supervision term.
Sex Offender Registration
A conviction under § 2422(b) triggers mandatory registration under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act. SORNA assigns tiers based on the offense itself rather than any individualized risk assessment. A standard § 2422(b) conviction is a Tier II offense, which requires twenty-five years of registration.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 34 USC 20911 – Relevant Definitions, Including Tier Definitions9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 34 USC 20915 – Duration of Registration Requirement If the underlying conduct involved aggravated sexual abuse or sexual contact with a child under thirteen, the classification rises to Tier III and registration becomes lifetime.
A registrant must keep information current in every jurisdiction where they live, work, or attend school. Any change to name, home address, employer, or student status has to be reported in person within three business days.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 34 USC 20913 – Registry Requirements for Sex Offenders The KIDS Act of 2008 added a requirement to disclose all internet identifiers, including email addresses and social media accounts.11Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking. Current Law
Failing to register or update is a separate federal crime under 18 U.S.C. § 2250, carrying up to ten additional years in prison.12Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 US Code 2250 – Failure to Register Prosecutors do pursue these cases. Someone who moves without re-registering, or opens a new email account without reporting it, can be charged for the registration violation on top of any consequences flowing from the original conviction.
Life After the Sentence
The formal sentence is only the beginning. A conviction for a sex offense against a minor reaches into housing, travel, employment, and immigration status for decades.
Passports and International Travel
Under International Megan’s Law, the State Department cannot issue a passport to a registered sex offender convicted of an offense against a minor unless the passport carries a conspicuous endorsement identifying the holder as a covered sex offender.13Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 22 USC 212b – Unique Passport Identifiers for Covered Sex Offenders Border officials in every country can see it. Registrants also have to notify their registration jurisdiction of international travel at least twenty-one days in advance, and the Angel Watch Center may alert destination countries.14Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking. International Megan’s Law Many countries deny entry.
Housing
Federal law doesn’t dictate where a registered offender can live, but most states do. Residency restrictions typically prohibit living within 500 to 2,000 feet of schools, daycare centers, parks, and other places where children gather.15Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking. Case Law Summary – Locally Enacted Sex Offender Requirements In dense urban areas, those buffers eliminate most available housing. Private landlords routinely screen against sex offender registries.
Immigration
For non-citizens, a conviction for sexual abuse of a minor is an aggravated felony under the Immigration and Nationality Act. That classification means mandatory deportation, permanent inadmissibility to the United States, and ineligibility for most forms of relief from removal.16United States Congress. Immigration Consequences of Criminal Activity The consequence is automatic and does not depend on the length of the prison sentence.
Employment and Licensing
The sex offender registry is public. Employers in education, healthcare, childcare, and government run background checks that will surface the conviction. Many professional licensing boards can revoke or deny licenses based on a sex offense, especially in fields involving contact with vulnerable populations. Entire career paths close.
How These Cases Get Made
Most federal online solicitation arrests come from proactive sting operations rather than reports from actual victims. Agencies run undercover profiles on the platforms where real children spend time: social media, messaging apps, gaming, dating sites.
These efforts are coordinated through the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force Program, a national network of sixty-one task forces made up of more than 5,400 federal, state, and local agencies.17Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program ICAC task forces handle both undercover operations and reactive investigations from tips sent by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children or by technology companies that detect suspicious activity.
Undercover officers are trained to let the suspect drive the sexual nature of the conversation. That is both tradecraft and a legal necessity: officers who initiate or escalate the sexual content hand the defense an entrapment argument. The full conversation is logged as evidence. Arrests typically come at one of two moments: when the suspect sends or requests explicit material involving a minor, or when the suspect shows up at a prearranged meeting location. The meeting is often the strongest piece of evidence at trial because it shows the defendant moved from words to action.
Defenses That Actually Come Up
Convictions under § 2422(b) are hard to beat, and how well any defense works depends almost entirely on the specific facts.
Entrapment
Entrapment is the defense people reach for first, and it almost always fails. The federal test is subjective: was the defendant predisposed to commit this crime, or did the government create the criminal intent from nothing? If the record shows predisposition, the defense collapses regardless of how aggressive the undercover officer was. Prosecutors can introduce prior criminal history, earlier online behavior, and other chat logs to show it. Because stings are designed to let the suspect lead the conversation, the transcripts usually show predisposition clearly. Officers are allowed to provide the opportunity to commit a crime; they are not allowed to manufacture the desire in someone who had none.
Lack of Intent
A defendant may argue the messages were jokes, fantasy, or role-play and that no real sexual conduct was ever intended. This defense puts the chat logs under a microscope. Prosecutors answer with the progression of the conversation, the specificity of any plans, and especially any step the defendant took beyond talking: buying travel tickets, booking a hotel, arriving at a meeting location. The “I wasn’t serious” argument tends to fall apart when the defendant drove two hours to meet someone they believed was fourteen.
Suppressing Digital Evidence
Online solicitation cases are built on digital evidence: chat logs, social media messages, location data, the contents of phones and computers. The Fourth Amendment limits how that material can be gathered. In Riley v. California, the Supreme Court held that police generally cannot search the digital contents of a phone seized during an arrest without a warrant.18Justia US Supreme Court. Riley v California, 573 US 373 (2014) In Carpenter v. United States, the Court held that the government needs a warrant based on probable cause to pull historical cell-site location records from a wireless carrier.19Supreme Court of the United States. Carpenter v United States, 585 US 296 (2018) If a warrant was defective, exceeded in scope, or skipped entirely, defense counsel can move to exclude whatever came out of the search. When the government’s case rests on messages, photos, or travel patterns stored on a device, suppression can gut the prosecution.
State Charges on Top of Federal
Every state has its own online solicitation statute, and the details vary. Some set the age threshold at seventeen rather than eighteen. Definitions of solicitation differ. State felony sentences typically run from roughly five to twenty years, with enhancements when the perceived victim is below a lower age cutoff like twelve or fourteen, or when the defendant held a position of trust. State convictions trigger state registration requirements that may follow a different timeline or tier system than SORNA, and a defendant who later moves must comply with the rules in both the conviction state and the new state of residence.
The same conversation can draw both federal and state charges. Dual sovereignty means that is not double jeopardy. In practice, the federal case usually carries the heavier consequence because of the ten-year minimum and the no-probation rule, but state charges can add consecutive prison time, additional registration obligations, and state-specific restrictions on housing and employment that layer on top of the federal penalties.