Man who tried to lure minor to his tent in Chesapeake sentenced to prison

NORFOLK

When authorities arrested Jesse Lee Wise as he sat at a computer in the Chesapeake library last summer trying to lure a 13-year-old girl to a tent he had put up outside the building, he asked them if he could just "type one more thing," a federal agent said.

And then, even after he was in jail facing federal charges of enticing a minor, he tried contacting a 15-year-old girl in Idaho.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith cited this conduct and other attempts to have sex with underage girls in sentencing Wise to 17-1/2 years in federal prison, the maximum under federally recommended guidelines.

The judge told Wise she was greatly concerned by "the predatory nature of your action."

Wise, 25, of Arizona, was arrested in July while typing away at a computer in the Chesapeake library. He had traveled across the country by bus and pitched his tent outside the library, and he was using the computer to lure the 13-year-old to the tent for sex.

Wise pleaded guilty to

enticement of a minor. He admitted that he took a bus from Nevada to meet the girl after conversing with her online through MySpace.

By the time he got to Chesapeake, however, the teen had alerted her parents that her conversations with Wise had turned sexual. They called the police, who arrested Wise while he sat at the library's computer. In the tent just outside, he had a bus ticket with the girl's name on it, as well as a ring and condoms.

Paul Wolpert, a special agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in court that Wise asked if he could "type one more thing" before being handcuffed. The state troopers there to arrest him had to force him up out of the chair.

During the online conversations, Wise suggested that because of the summer heat he and the girl have sex in the library restroom, "as long as you're quiet," Wolpert said, quoting Wise.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa O'Boyle called Wise "every parent's worst nightmare."

"This defendant is the poster child for online predators," she said.

Even after his arrest, Wise tried contacting a 15-year-old girl in Idaho, but she didn't take his calls. Before his arrest, he had sexually explicit conversations with her, tried to obtain naked pictures of her, and promised to travel to meet her.

He also had online relationships with two 16-year-old girls, one in California who did send him naked pictures of herself, and one in Texas. He also fathered a child with a 16-year-old girl in Nevada, O'Boyle said.

O'Boyle read a letter from the mother of the Chesapeake girl. The incident, the letter says, "is a weight that will never lift off our shoulders."

The girl is in constant fear of being found out as the victim and even more fearful that Wise will return to kill her, the letter says.

"I dread the day he is released," the mother wrote.

In addition to the prison time, Smith sentenced Wise to lifetime probation. She also ordered him to get treatment for sexual addiction, anger management and substance abuse.

When he's released, he must stay away from computers with online access and have no unsupervised contact with children.

"I am concerned about protecting the public from you," the judge said.

Tim McGlone, (757) 446-2343, tim.mcglone@pilotonline.com