SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Timothy A. Garrison, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a Noel, Mo., sex offender pleaded guilty in federal court today to charges related to child sexual exploitation and illegally possessing firearms.
Raymond Adair, 58, of Noel, pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge David P. Rush to one count of traveling across state lines to engage in illicit sexual conduct and one count of being an unlawful user of a controlled substance in possession of firearms.
Adair, a registered sex offender, was previously convicted in Colorado of attempted second-degree kidnapping of a minor and two counts of indecent exposure to a minor.
By pleading guilty today, Adair admitted that he traveled from Missouri to Arkansas on May 9, 2016, to engage in illicit sexual conduct. Bentonville, Ark., police officers received two separate complaints on that day of Adair exposing himself to children walking home from school. One of the children was walking home from a school bus stop, according to the plea agreement, and investigators obtained images of Adair’s vehicle from the school bus’s surveillance cameras.
On May 11, 2016, law enforcement officers executed a search warrant at Adair’s residence and he was arrested. During the search, officers found an AR-15 rifle, a Marlin rifle, a Ruger rifle, and approximately 12 and a half pounds of marijuana.
Under federal statutes, Adair is subject to a sentence of up to 70 years in federal prison without parole. Under the terms of today’s plea agreement, Adair must pay a fine of $150,000.
