A coastal Georgia man was sentenced to a decade in prison last week for a child sex crime in U.S. District Court in Brunswick.
Joshua Weaver, formerly of St. Marys, pleaded guilty Dec. 6 to attempted coercion and enticement of a minor for sexual activity while using a mobile phone and the internet. A federal grand jury also indicted him for attempted transfer of obscene matter to a minor, but that charge was dropped as a condition of his plea.
Weaver was one of nine men arrested in a child sex trafficking sting that involved the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Georgia and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, along with the Camden County Sheriff's Office, the Kingsland Police Department and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
Camden County Sheriff Jim Proctor said at the time of the arrests, "The investigation conducted by federal, state and local agencies is an example of how a cooperative effort by law enforcement protects the youth from those who attempt to prey upon the children of our communities."
The crime to which Weaver pleaded carried a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years. Judge Lisa Godbey Wood sentenced Weaver to 10 years and six months in federal prison. Once released, he's to be under five years of supervised release, during which time he must attend a sex offense treatment program, not view or possess any material with sexually explicit conduct and must not obtain internet access.
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