North Carolina Man Sentenced for Enticement of a Minor

United States Attorney Joe Kelly announced that Alexander M. Kingston, 27, formerly of Locust, North Carolina, was sentenced today in Lincoln, Nebraska, to 10 years in prison by United States Senior District Judge Richard G. Kopf for enticement of a minor.  In addition to his prison sentence, Kingston will also serve 10 years on supervised release and be required to register as a sex offender.

In March of 2019, Lincoln Police Department Task Force Officers learned that a 14-year-old female met Kingston on a chatting website for teenagers. The minor communicated with Kingston through this website and other social media accounts.

Kingston offered to drive to Lincoln, Nebraska to pick her up. Officers learned Kingston was also talking to the minor through her friend’s social media account. Officers were granted access to the friend’s account, and continued the conversation with Kingston in an undercover capacity.  Kingston believed that he was communicating with a 14-year-old female.

Kingston told the undercover officer he would drive from Kentucky and pick up the minor and take her to another state where she would live with him.  Kingston then negotiated a meeting place in Lincoln, Nebraska. Kingston indicated he wanted to meet with the minor in a hotel room in Lincoln, Nebraska. 

Through several search warrants to social media sites, Kingston was identified and located as living in Monroe, North Carolina.

On April 19, 2019, Kingston arrived at the pre-determined meeting site located in Lincoln to meet with the minor and her friend. Kingston got out of a vehicle with North Carolina license plates and was approached and arrested by Lincoln Police Department Officers. Kingston was holding a cellphone at the time of his arrest. The cellphone was observed to be open to an Instagram conversation between Kingston and the undercover officers.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue minors. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force.