FORT SMITH -- A former Ash Flat doctor pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to enticing a mother to cross state lines so he could have sex with her 4-year-old daughter.
The mother turned out to be an undercover Fort Smith police officer, who set up the tryst over the Internet with Donald Wayne Lamoureaux in February as part of a task force operation to catch child pornographers.
Lamoureaux, 69, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge P.K. Holmes III to coercion and enticement of a minor to cross state lines to groom a 4-year-old girl for sex.
In exchange for his plea, a second count in the federal indictment of attempted coercion or enticement will be dismissed.
During the 10-minute hearing Tuesday, Holmes warned Lamoureaux that he could be sentenced from 10 years to life in prison and fined up to $250,000. He said sentencing would follow completion of a pre-sentence report that normally takes six to eight weeks to prepare.
Lamoureaux appeared before Holmes in court Tuesday dressed in a faded orange jail uniform. He has been held in lieu of bond in the Sebastian County jail since his Feb. 6 arrest.
Sitting at the defense table with his attorney, Rex Chronister of Fort Smith, Lamoureaux appeared alert and answered all of Holmes' questions without hesitation.
Lamoureaux, who practiced family medicine in Horseshoe Bend and Dexter, Mo., was arrested in a hotel in West Plains, Mo., where he had agreed to meet with who he thought would be a woman and her 4-year-old daughter.
He had made contact with the undercover officer posing as the child's mother in January on an Internet site called OlderForYounger, and they began conversing.
An affidavit by a task force officer stated Lamoureaux told the officer he wanted to teach the 4-year-old how to have sex. He didn't want to have intercourse with the child until she was 9 but wanted to perform other sex acts on her.
He proposed meeting at the Missouri hotel, where he planned to bathe the child and abuse her sexually, the affidavit stated.
On Feb. 2, Lamoureaux asked the officer to set up a bank account so he could send money for the mother's hotel, sex toys, gas and other expenses. On Feb. 4, according to the affidavit, Lamoureaux deposited $300 into the account.
Searching his car after his arrest, officers found a Barbie doll, a dog collar and a prescription for Cialis, a male erectile-dysfunction drug, according to a plea agreement Lamoureaux signed with the government.
Peggy Cryer, Arkansas Medical Board executive secretary, said she didn't know Lamoureaux was scheduled to enter a plea Tuesday. She said she would have to contact the board to see what action, if any, its members wanted to take on the status of his medical license.
She said the board is scheduled for a telephone meeting today and may address Lamoureaux's status.
The board suspended Lamoureaux's medical license after his arrest. A check of the board's website Tuesday showed that his license, issued Dec. 1, 2000, expired April 30 and was listed as inactive.
Cryer said convicted felons may not practice medicine in Arkansas, but the board can make exceptions to grant licenses.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported in February that Lamoureaux previously had appeared before the medical board in October 2007, after he was removed from a clinic owned by White River Medical Center in Batesville over pornography discovered on a personal laptop computer that he used to access the hospital network.
The board did not take action against Lamoureaux at that time.
Metro on 07/01/2015