A 57-year-old Cabot man accused of trying to solicit sex with a 14-year-old girl through a man posing as her father online told jurors Monday that he was merely engaging in a "dance" to catch a child predator.
Testifying as the last witness in his child-enticement trial, which began last week in a Little Rock federal courtroom, Robert Nathan Hensley said he only responded the night of Oct. 12, 2017, to a Craigslist ad offering "young, fresh, petite," because the website required all parties to be 18 or older.
A series of text messages exchanged between Hensley and undercover FBI agents posing as the girl's father over several hours that night included the agents' claim that the girl was 14. But Hensley testified he missed that claim at first and kept up the banter, trying to figure out if the offer was real or if he was communicating with law enforcement officers. In the event officers were trying to trick him into agreeing to have sex with a child, he pointed out, he made clear in a text that he wasn't interested unless the girl was 18.
But after the agents reminded Hensley they had already told him the girl's age, he continued the "dance," he acknowledged, saying he also came to suspect that he may be communicating with a sex trafficker.
Having watched a 30-minute video created by Truckers Against Trafficking in association with the National Human Trafficking Resource Center -- which his attorney played for jurors Monday -- Hensley said he decided to try to get as many details as possible to turn over to law enforcement.
Hensley testified that he arranged to meet the father and daughter in the parking lot of an Exxon station in Conway, where the undercover agents said the father and daughter were passing through en route to Tennessee from Texas, in an effort to take photographs, especially of the girl, to turn over to law enforcement. He acknowledged parking in his work van, which bore the insignia "Last Chance Heat & Air," and watching as a white car matching the description of the supposed father-daughter team turned into the lot and circled it.
The agents were looking for Hensley, who falsely told them he would be in a white pickup and said he wanted the girl to step out of the car so he could get a good look at her.
"I wanted to get as much information as I could -- the car, the tag number. I really wanted a picture of the people," especially the girl, he said.
He said he often sat in the large, busy parking lot in his van anyway, writing out invoices or surfing the Internet, in an effort to advertise his business.
The meet-up failed, however, after the agents couldn't spot Hensley and texted that they were tired of him wasting their time.
But hours later, after they texted him a picture of a fully clothed girl and said, "See what you missed," he began corresponding with them again.
At 4 a.m., he said, he contacted the child-trafficking hotline and gave them the phone number of the person with whom he had been exchanging texts. He said someone at the hotline told him he needed to provide more information, so he offered to meet the person who said he was the girl's father at his home, to perform a sex act on the man. He said he gave them his home address because he planned to photograph them with security cameras installed on top of his camper.
Instead, the agents faked a service call that got Hensley away from his home, and arrested him at a nearby intersection.
He told jurors that he didn't knowingly download any of the child pornography that the agents subsequently found on his laptop computer at his home, and noted that he didn't have $150 cash -- the amount he had offered to pay for the girl.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristin Bryant asked why he didn't contact local authorities before trying to meet the potential sex trafficker in the Exxon parking lot. Hensley replied that he feared he would have to give his name.
"I had to remain anonymous. I felt like my kids and grandkids could be victimized," he said.
"You wanted to remain so anonymous that you sent a picture of yourself?" Bryant asked. "You wanted to remain so anonymous that you used your own phone? That you gave them your address?"
Hensley had earlier acknowledged having past convictions for attempting to engage children in sexually explicit conduct, but didn't elaborate.
Later, defense attorney Latrece Gray asked him, "Why were you so hell-bent on catching this trafficker?"
"I made a promise 15 years ago," Hensley said, his voice breaking.
"I'll move on," Gray said. "I don't want you to have to go through that."
Closing arguments are to begin at 9:30 a.m. today before U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright.
Metro on 03/05/2019