|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
A soldier who went AWOL from Fort Bragg in North Carolina was sentenced Friday to more than five years in federal prison after pleading guilty to charges of having sex with a Walnut Creek girl who was under 16 years old.
Brian Simoneschi was sentenced to 85 months in prison, and ordered to pay $6,000 in restitution for having committed a crime of violence while failing to register as a sex offender, United States Attorney Melinda Haag announced.
Simoneschi pleaded guilty on Oct. 14, 2011, to one count of committing a crime of violence while failing to register as a sex offender. According to the plea agreement, Simoneschi, a sex offender based on a 2008 conviction for annoying or molesting a child, admitted that he moved from North Carolina to California in January, 2009, but did not update his sex offender registration to reflect his move.
He also admitted that the reason for his move to California was to have sex with a girl who was under the age of 16, and that he had sexual intercourse with the girl after having failed to register as a sex offender.
Simoneschi met the child victim in this case online while he was stationed at Fort Bragg. After communicating with her via the Internet and a webcam for about a month, he traveled to California to meet her, and admitted to having sex with her eleven times.
He began communicating with the victim only a month after having been convicted for another sex crime involving children.
The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston.
