Solicitation of a Minor: Federal Charges, Penalties, and Defenses

The solicitation of a minor is a federal felony under 18 U.S.C. § 2422(b) that occurs the moment an adult uses the mail, the internet, or any other interstate means of communication to try to persuade, entice, or coerce someone under 18 into sexual activity. A conviction carries a mandatory minimum of 10 years in federal prison and a maximum of life, even when no physical meeting ever takes place and no real child was ever on the other end of the conversation.¹

What the Law Actually Criminalizes

Section 2422(b) targets the attempt to persuade, not the sexual act itself. The crime is complete once an adult knowingly tries to entice someone they believe is under 18 into sexual conduct that would be illegal under federal or state law. No travel, no meeting, and no touching are required.¹

Federal law uses 18 as the threshold for sexual exploitation offenses, regardless of the age of consent in any particular state.² And the attempt provision is where many defendants are caught off guard: trying to entice a minor carries the same 10-year mandatory minimum as a completed offense, and the “minor” does not have to exist.¹

What Prosecutors Must Prove

To convict under § 2422(b), the government must prove three elements:

The defendant used the mail, the internet, or another means of interstate commerce.
The defendant knowingly tried to persuade or entice someone to engage in sexual activity that would be criminal.
The defendant either knew the person was under 18 or believed the person was under 18.³

That last element is the key. The government does not have to prove the target was actually a child. The defendant’s belief about the person’s age is enough. The focus is on intent, and the evidence is almost always the defendant’s own words: chat logs, text messages, emails, images sent, and any concrete step taken to arrange a meeting. An overt act beyond idle conversation is typically required, but courts set that bar low. Sending sexually explicit messages to someone described as 14, or proposing a meetup, easily qualifies.

Why Sting Operations Produce So Many Convictions

Most federal solicitation cases now begin on social media, dating apps, messaging services, online games, or chat rooms. Officers create profiles posing as minors and wait for adults to initiate sexual conversation, documenting every exchange. These operations are legally valid, and the federal sentencing guidelines expressly define “minor” to include fictitious persons represented by law enforcement as being under 18, along with undercover officers who represent themselves as minors. A defendant cannot escape conviction simply because the “child” was really an adult agent.

The statute’s reach covers “any facility or means of interstate or foreign commerce,” which sweeps in virtually all internet-based communication and puts the case within federal jurisdiction regardless of where the defendant or the target is located.¹

Investigators still have to follow constitutional rules. People have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their phones and computers, so law enforcement generally needs a warrant to search a seized device. Evidence pulled from a phone searched without a warrant or an applicable exception can be suppressed under the Fourth Amendment.

Prison Time and Fines

Penalties under § 2422(b) leave judges almost no room for leniency. The mandatory minimum is 10 years in federal prison and the maximum is life. There is no probation-only option. Defendants with prior sex offense convictions face steeper ranges under the sentencing guidelines.¹

Fines for individuals convicted of federal felonies can reach $250,000.⁴ When an identifiable victim suffered harm, courts must also order restitution covering medical and psychiatric care, therapy, lost income, attorney fees, and other losses tied to the offense. Judges cannot waive restitution based on inability to pay.⁵

Supervised Release After Prison

A § 2422 conviction brings a supervised release term of at least five years, with no upper limit. Courts can impose lifetime supervision. A judge can require the defendant to submit to warrantless searches of their home, vehicles, computers, and electronic devices by any probation or law enforcement officer with reasonable suspicion.⁶

Compliance with sex offender registration is a mandatory condition of supervised release. If a registered offender commits another qualifying sexual offense while on release, the court must revoke the release and impose a new prison term of at least five years.⁶

Sex Offender Registration

Conviction triggers mandatory registration under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act. SORNA sorts offenses into three tiers:⁷

Tier I: 15 years of registration, reducible to 10 with a clean record.
Tier II: 25 years of registration.
Tier III: lifetime registration.

A conviction under § 2422(b) is a Tier II offense, meaning a minimum 25-year registration period.⁸ If the offense involved a child under 13 or the defendant has a prior qualifying conviction, Tier III applies and registration is for life.

Registrants have to keep their information current in every jurisdiction where they live, work, or go to school, including addresses, employment, vehicles, and internet identifiers. Failing to register or update is itself a federal crime under 18 U.S.C. § 2250.⁷

Life After the Sentence

The consequences keep running after prison and registration. Under International Megan’s Law, the State Department will not issue a passport to a registered sex offender convicted of an offense against a minor unless the passport bears a unique identifier: a printed statement disclosing that the bearer was convicted of a sex offense against a minor. Offenders with existing passports must surrender them and receive reissued ones carrying the notation.⁹

The Angel Watch Center within U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reviews departure records against the National Sex Offender Registry no later than 48 hours before a scheduled departure, and in urgent cases it can transmit information to a destination country immediately.¹⁰ Travel is not formally banned, but many countries deny entry to someone flagged this way or carrying the passport identifier.

At home, most states impose residency restrictions that prohibit registered offenders from living within a set distance of schools, parks, playgrounds, and daycare centers, typically between 500 and 2,500 feet. In dense areas, that eliminates most of the available housing. Background checks reveal the conviction and registration status to any employer who runs one, and professions involving contact with minors or vulnerable populations are largely off-limits. Professional licenses in education, healthcare, and law are routinely denied or revoked. Loss of other civil rights can follow as well, including, depending on the jurisdiction, voting, jury service, and firearm possession.

Defenses That Sometimes Work

Entrapment is the most common defense in sting cases, and it occasionally succeeds. In Jacobson v. United States, the Supreme Court held that the government cannot “originate a criminal design, implant in an innocent person’s mind the disposition to commit a criminal act, and then induce commission of the crime so that the Government may prosecute.”¹¹

A successful entrapment claim requires showing both government inducement and that the defendant was not already predisposed to commit the crime. Predisposition is where most claims fail. If the defendant engaged in sexual conversation, sent explicit material, or took steps to arrange a meeting without heavy pressure from the officer, courts find predisposition. Once the defense is raised, the government must prove predisposition beyond a reasonable doubt, and prosecutors point to the defendant’s own words and conduct during the conversation.¹¹

Other defenses include challenging electronic evidence under the Fourth Amendment when officers searched devices without proper authorization, and raising due process when government conduct was so outrageous that it violated fundamental fairness. These are harder to win because courts give investigators significant latitude, but they remain available when agents cross constitutional lines.

State Charges on Top of Federal

Every state has its own solicitation-of-a-minor statute, and most classify the offense as a felony, with many imposing enhanced penalties when the target is younger than 14. Some states also distinguish between online and in-person solicitation. A defendant can face both state and federal charges for the same conduct when the communication crossed state lines or used the internet, and double jeopardy does not bar separate state and federal prosecutions.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2422 – Coercion and Enticement
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 US Code 2256 – Definitions for Chapter
3
Ninth Circuit District and Bankruptcy Courts. 18 USC 2422(b) – Using or Attempting to Use the Mail or a Means of Interstate Commerce to Persuade or Coerce a Minor to Engage in Prostitution or Sexual Activity
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 3571 – Sentence of Fine
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2259 – Mandatory Restitution
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 3583 – Inclusion of a Term of Supervised Release After Imprisonment
7
Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking. Current Law
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 34 USC 20911 – Relevant Definitions, Including Amie Zyla Expansion of Sex Offender Definition and Criminal History Requirements
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 22 USC 212b – Unique Passport Identifiers for Covered Sex Offenders
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 34 USC 21503 – Angel Watch Center
11
Legal Information Institute. Jacobson v United States, 503 US 540 (1992)