A doctor from Ash Flat charged with attempting to arrange a sexual encounter online with a minor female changed his plea to guilty on Tuesday, U.S. District Attorney Conner Eldridge announced.
Donald Wayne Lamoureaux, 68, previously practiced family medicine in Horsehoe Bend and Dexter, Mo., and was employed at a Veterans Affairs medical facility in West Plains, Mo.
Lamoureaux was charged with attempted coercion and enticement of a minor for sexual purposes in February in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas in Fort Smith.
An undercover Fort Smith police officer posed as a mother offering her four year-old daughter for sexual exploitation and made contact with Lamoureaux, Eldridge said in a news release.
Lamoureaux, who identified himself as a physician from northeast Arkansas and sent a photo of himself to the "mother," planned to meet the woman and her child on Feb. 6 at a hotel in West Plains, Mo., the release states. The doctor deposited $300 for transportation expenses into a bank account the undercover officer set up, authorities said. Officers arrested Lamoureaux on Feb. 6 when he arrived at the hotel.
Eldridge said Lamoureaux will be sentenced at a later date. He could be sentenced to prison for no less than 10 years up to a life sentence, without the possibility of parole, and could be fined up to $250,000.