SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – A man was arrested in Salt Lake City after he allegedly arranged to pay for sexual encounters with a 9-year-old girl, and the meet-up was the work of a detective posing online as a woman who offered her daughter for sexual acts.
According to a court document filed Thursday, 61-year-old Millard J. Lonkey Jr. faces one count of travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual contact—specifically with someone under the age of 18.
The document states that on or about May 20, a detective with the Salt Lake City Police Department who works to prevent exploitation of children entered an IRC chatroom and posed as a woman who has two daughters, ages 2 and 9.
A user named “Rita36” sent the detective messages asking about her “children” and their experience with sexual acts. “Rita” reportedly said she was into sex with young girls and asked the detective, “…if I wanted to ‘get rid of [my] 9 yr old for a week or so?’”
When the detective, still posing as the children’s mother, replied and said she was in Salt Lake City, “Rita” replied and said her boyfriend is a truck driver who would be driving through Salt Lake City via California and wanted to stop for a visit.
The officer told “Rita” the charge was $100 for two hours and $200 for a night with the fictitious 9-year-old girl, and the woman then suggested her boyfriend, “Skip”, should meet the mother at a truck stop in Salt Lake City. “Rita” sent a photo of “Skip” through the chatroom and, also asked for graphic details regarding the fictitious child’s experience with sexual acts.
On June 17, “Skip” and the detective exchanged text messages indicating the man was in Nevada and would be in Salt Lake City the next day. The man described what he would be wearing and arranged for the meeting, and he asked if the “mother” had told her “daughter” about the meeting.
The detective replied, “ I said I had told her there was a special visitor coming and that he would be bringing a gift, which he said he would pick up at the truck stop.”
During the exchange, “Skip” allegedly told the officer in graphic detail what he wanted to do with the child and have her to do him, including oral sex acts and others.
The next day, “Skip” followed through on the arrangements to meet after speaking with the undercover officer over the phone and via text messages. The man sent a text message saying he had arrived and describing his clothes, and when he went to the detective’s car to introduce himself she recognized him as the person in the photo “Rita” had sent.
The man was arrested almost immediately after he approached the undercover detective’s vehicle, and he was identified by his Ohio driver’s license as Millard J. Lonkey Jr. The man had a prior conviction in New York in 2000 for disseminating indecent material to minors.
Lonkey was booked into the Davis County Jail, and records indicate he is being held for the Federal Marshals Service.
