Man gets three years after bust in online sting
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Recommend ThisBy Alex Bridges -- abridges@nvdaily.com
WINCHESTER -- A Frederick County man must serve three years in prison for crimes related to a sting operation targeting online sexual predators last year.
Retired Judge Ben Kendrick sentenced Marshall Lee Warner III, 39, of 726 Wardensville Grade, in Frederick County Circuit Court on Tuesday to five years in a state penitentiary for each of two counts of attempted indecent liberties with a minor. Kendrick ordered the two terms run consecutively. The judge suspended two years of one term and all of the second.
A grand jury originally indicted Warner on one count of attempted indecent liberties and using a computer to commit a crime involving children. An agreement reached between the commonwealth and his attorney, Roger Inger, called for Warner to enter guilty pleas to two counts of the same charge.
The judge accepted the agreement, which also calls for Warner to register as a sex offender with the Virginia State Police. The agreement also restricts Warner's use of a computer. Warner must serve 10 years of supervised probation upon his release.
Authorities arrested Warner in July in the parking lot of the Martin's grocery store near Stephens City after he drove to the location to meet someone he thought was a 14-year-old girl for sex, according to court documents.
Warner began a conversation in a Yahoo chat room on the Internet with James Galbreath, an investigator with the Frederick County Sheriff's Office who also works with a task force focused on tracking sexual predators online.
Galbreath posed as a 14-year-old girl, according to an affidavit for a warrant to search Warner's home. The conversation became sexual in nature and, after a second chat, Warner suggested the two meet at the store parking lot, the affidavit states.
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