LOW DOWN DIRTY PEDOPHILE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASETuesday, April 16, 2013
U.K. Resident Extradited on Charges He Traveled to Ohio to Have Sex with a Juvenile
Richard Castle, 46, a resident of the United Kingdom, has been extradited to the United States where he faces charges of coercion of a minor, travelling with intent to engage in illicit sexual contact with a minor, and transferring obscene material to minors. The charges are related to a trip he allegedly made to Ohio from his home in order to have sexual relations with a juvenile in June 2011.

Mythili Raman, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Carter M. Stewart, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, and William A. Hayes, Acting Special Agent in Charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Ohio and Michigan announced the charges today after Castle appeared before a U.S. Magistrate Judge in Dayton, Ohio, who ordered him held without bond pending trial.

Members of the Metropolitan Police Service’s Extradition Team and International Assistance Unit, housed within New Scotland Yard, arrested Castle at his home in Northampton, England on Jan. 12, 2012 and seized at least one computer.

The three-count indictment alleges that Castle, posing as a male named Richard Joshua Parker, used the internet between March 2009 and June 2011 to coerce a juvenile to engage in illicit sexual activity. He allegedly flew to Dayton in June 2011 to engage in illicit sexual relations with the juvenile and stayed approximately three weeks. The indictment also accuses Castle of transferring obscene materials to a juvenile.

Coercion and enticement of a minor is punishable by at least ten years in prison and up to life. Travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct is punishable by up to 30 years and transfer of obscene material to minors is punishable by up to 10 years.

Raman and Stewart acknowledged the cooperative investigation by the Englewood Police Department, Vandalia Police Department and HSI special agents, as well as the invaluable support provided by the Miami Valley Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory, and the Ohio Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, the U.S. Marshals Service, the HSI Attache London Office, and the assistance of the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs in Castle’s extradition.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sheila Lafferty with the Southern District of Ohio and Trial Attorney Mi Yung Claire Park with the Department of Justice’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) are representing the United States in the case.

An indictment is merely an accusation, and the defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

13-437Criminal Division