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SALT LAKE CITY — A convicted sex offender has admitted that he drove from California to Utah this summer for the purpose of having sex with a child.
Cameron Lawson Call, 34, pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court to traveling with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, according to a clerk for Judge Clark Waddoups. At the request of federal prosecutors, one count of enticement for illegal sexual activity was dismissed, the clerk said.
Call was arrested at gunpoint during a July 21 traffic stop west of Vernal. The Loomis, California, man had driven nearly 800 miles to meet a 12-year-old girl for sex at a hotel, according to state court records.
The "child" was actually a Vernal police detective working undercover with the Utah Crimes Against Children Task Force. Call contacted the detective in April under the apparent belief that he was communicating with a child, charging documents state.
Call "went into explicit detail about the various things that he wished to do" and said he was coming to Vernal to engage in sex with the girl, investigators said. He also sent a sexually explicit picture of himself without being asked to do so, and shared Web links that showed underwear he wanted the "girl" to buy, according to the undercover officer.
The charge Call pleaded guilty to carries a maximum penalty of up to 30 years in federal prison. Call, who is identified in charging documents as a convicted sex offender in California, is scheduled to be sentenced March 18.
