Texas sex offender brought lingerie, candy for 10-year-old. Now, he’s headed to prison
A Texas registered sex offender was sentenced on Thursday to more than 30 years in a federal prison for arranging to have sex with a 10-year-old girl at a Garland apartment complex.
Keith Lee Merchant believed he was meeting a woman and her daughter at the complex In October 2018 to have sex with the child, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas.
But Merchant was arrested at that time by Garland police and FBI agents after a federal undercover agent had posed as the woman who answered his online advertisement.
Merchant, 41, of Longview, pleaded guilty in October 2020 to one count of attempted enticement of a child. On Thursday, he was sentenced to 365 months by U.S. District Judge Jane J. Boyle.
The undercover agent responded to the advertisement in 2018 on a social media website called, “Taboo Family Fun - M4F 37 (Near You), according to federal court documents.
Within minutes, Merchant, who created the ad, answered the undercover agent and initiated a three-week-long, sexually explicit dialog via social media and Kik, a messaging app popular among teenagers.
Merchant told the undercover agent that he previously had sexual relations with young girls and he was willing to have sex withe the agent’s 10-year-old daughter.
He wanted to travel from Longview to meet the 10-year-old and spend the night with her, according to court documents. He also promised to bring the girl lingerie and said, “got little miss a gift ... I hope she likes purple.”
After his arrest, authorities searched his pickup truck and located an overnight bag, a pink stuffed animal, a box of candy and purple lingerie, according to federal authorities.
When he was questioned by authorities, Merchant admitted he posted the advertisement and agreed the term “taboo” meant “underage.”
Merchant was convicted of indecency with a child sexual contact and possession of child pornography in 2004, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety’s sex offender registry. The cases involved a 15-year-old girl.
The Longview man, who was ordered to register as a sex offender for life, was sentenced to eight years and later paroled.
