Nathan Lee Kempter

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Nebraska, Nathan Lee Kempter, 33, of Colorado, was sentenced on January 27, 2021, by Chief U.S. District Judge John M. Gerrard to 19 years in prison. Kempter had previously been found guilty by a jury of attempted enticement of a minor (18 U.S.C. § 2422(b)) and interstate travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct (§ 2423(b)); the office's earlier release dated September 2, 2020, reported the guilty verdict following a jury trial. After his release from prison he will begin a 12-year term of supervised release and must register as a sex offender. The release notes there is no parole in the federal system. The Reddit connection is stated in the release. The U.S. Attorney's Office says a 14-year-old stated she met Kempter on the Reddit website, in a chat room for teen runaways, and that her screen name indicated she was a 14-year-old female. After communicating with Kempter on Reddit, the office says, they moved their conversation to Tumblr and exchanged messages between July 23, 2019, and August 2, 2019. It says that during these conversations Kempter made it known he wanted to have sex with the girl and would bring her to Colorado. The office says Kempter picked the girl up at her residence in Nebraska and began to drive west, that he stopped at a Walmart to buy her new clothes, and that Colorado deputies stopped his vehicle in front of his residence on August 2, 2019, and arrested him. According to the office, Kempter told the deputies the girl in his vehicle was 14. The case was brought under Project Safe Childhood and investigated by police agencies in Nebraska and Colorado and the FBI. Patch and CBS Colorado reported the sentence and the Reddit chat. Kempter appealed, and the Eighth Circuit affirmed his convictions and sentence in all respects on March 29, 2022 (United States v. Kempter, No. 21-1331). The Eighth Circuit's opinion describes the contact as taking place on a Subreddit for runaway teens, but the sources reviewed do not name the subreddit.