CINCINNATI (AP) — An Ohio man accused of using the internet to lure a 14-year-old girl into a sexual relationship and controlling her for months while he was electronically monitored from an earlier abduction case was sentenced Wednesday to more than 13 years in prison.
This undated file photo provided by the Salt Lake County Jail in Salt Lake City shows Cody Lee Jackson. The Ohio man accused of using the Internet to lure a 14-year-old girl into a sexual relationship and controlling her for months while he was electronically monitored from an earlier abduction case has been sentenced to more than 13 years in prison. Jackson was sentenced Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2018, in federal court in Cincinnati. He pleaded guilty last year to coercion and enticement of a minor. (Salt Lake County Jail via AP, File)
Twenty-two-year-old Cody Lee Jackson was sentenced Wednesday in federal court in Cincinnati. He pleaded guilty last May to coercion and enticement of a minor. Charges of production of child pornography and transfer of obscene matter to minors were dismissed under the plea deal.
Messages seeking comment were left for Jackson’s attorneys.
Defense attorney Candace Crouse said in a document filed before sentencing that Jackson has always denied allegations he kidnapped, raped and held the girl against her will and maintains they were in a consensual relationship. Crouse also said Jackson has been previously diagnosed with “multiple mental health illnesses” and never received proper treatment.
Federal prosecutors said in a document filed before sentencing that Jackson made a practice of seeking out “young women for sexual gratification” and abused and controlled them.
Court documents say Jackson contacted the teenager who was then 14 through Facebook in 2015. At the time he was facing charges in an unrelated abduction case from the year before and was being electronically monitored.
While still being monitored, Jackson arranged for a taxi to deliver the girl on several occasions and had sex with her, according to federal documents. Documents say she told authorities that by March 2015, he no longer allowed her to leave his apartment “unless it was with him or at his direction.”
He punished her physically for violations of his rules that included no talking to other men and no showering or using the restroom without permission, the documents say. She became pregnant by Jackson after being at his apartment for nearly two months, authorities said in an affidavit.
Local law enforcement officers made unannounced visits to Jackson’s home during the seven months he was wearing the monitoring device. But federal officials said he had another woman watch the girl and take her out of his apartment when she was there during those checks.
The monitoring ended after Jackson pleaded guilty to a charge of interference with custody in the earlier abduction case, in which two females alleged he held them against their will at a hotel in 2014. But he fled Ohio before his August 2015 sentencing in that case.
Jackson eventually was arrested in Utah without the 14-year-old in October 2015 and has remained in custody.
“This illicit sexual conduct, paired with a seemingly complete disregard for the law, calls for the sentence he received today,” said Benjamin Glassman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Ohio.
By LISA CORNWELL
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