Henderson man who enticed girls for sex sentenced to prison

A 55-year-old Henderson man convicted of flying two runaway teenagers to Las Vegas, where he had sex with them, was sentenced Tuesday to 20 years in federal prison, according to the Justice Department.

Robert Marcellus Jones Jr., who was sentenced Tuesday, had pleaded guilty in 2019 to one count each of distribution of child pornography, receipt of child pornography, transportation of minors for prostitution or other illegal sexual activity, and coercion and enticement, officials said in a statement.

Unsolicited, Jones began communicating with the 15-year-old New York City girls on Facebook in September 2018, according to a criminal complaint.

The chat was explicit from the start, and Jones began asking for pornographic images, the complaint said.

He promised the girls, who shared a Facebook account, a “weekly allowance” in exchange for “sexual attention and nude photographs and videos,” according to the statement.

He bought them flights with his credit card on Nov. 2, 2018, noting in their tickets that they were 15, the complaint said. The teenage girls boarded a flight to Las Vegas that November. One of the girls eventually called her parents, who bought her a flight back.

A few days after Jones bought the tickets, a human trafficking hotline received a tip alerting authorities about a man who was “enticing three victims over Facebook,” according to the statement.

Authorities went to Jones’ home on Nov. 8, 2018, and found the second girl there, the complaint said. Investigators recovered the explicit conversations and pictures of the girls in his phone.

After he’s released from prison, Jones faces 15 years of probation, the statement said.

Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @rickytwrites.