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South Carolina Man Pleads Guilty to Interstate Travel to Engage in Illicit Sexual Conduct with a Minor in Louisiana

Louisiana – Graham Lovelace, age 33, of Greenville, South Carolina, pleaded guilty as charged today before United States District Judge Barry W. Ashe to a one-count bill of information charging him with interstate travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, announced United States Attorney Duane A. Evans.

According to court documents, Lovelace met the minor, a fifteen-year-old from Belle Chasse, Louisiana, on an Xbox game in October 2021. Lovelace and the minor exchanged sexually explicit correspondence throughout 2020 and 2021, and they planned to engage in sexual acts on multiple occasions in the future. Lovelace used a video messaging app to request and receive sexually explicit images and videos of the minor during the correspondence.

Lovelace bought the minor victim a bus ticket from New Orleans to Greenville, South Carolina in early January 2021. The minor victim’s mother, on the other hand, discovered the correspondence with Lovelace, informed Lovelace of the minor victim’s age, and prevented the minor from leaving Louisiana. Lovelace and the minor made plans in the fall of 2021 for Lovelace to travel to Louisiana to pick up the minor and return to South Carolina together to engage in sex and spend the rest of their lives together.

Lovelace drove from South Carolina to the minor’s Belle Chasse, Louisiana school bus stop around October 6, 2021. Lovelace and the minor then traveled to New Orleans, where they shared a hotel room and had sexual relations. On or around October 7, 2021, law enforcement officers discovered Lovelace and the minor walking hand-in-hand down Bourbon Street in New Orleans.

Lovelace faces a maximum sentence of thirty years in prison, followed by a minimum of five years and a maximum of a lifetime of supervised release, as well as a $250,000 fine. At sentencing, Lovelace will also be required to pay a mandatory $100 special assessment fee. Lovelace may be required to register as a sex offender as well. Sentencing has been set for Thursday, August 18, 2022, before Judge Milazzo.

Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Plaquemines Parish Sheriff’s Office investigated the case. Assistant United States Attorneys Jordan Ginsberg and Melissa Bücher prosecuted the case.

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