A federal jury deliberated for 53 minutes Thursday afternoon before convicting a year-old Memphis man of charges alleging that he drove to Conway on Oct. When Michael Willins, then 38, parked his black Nissan at a Conway apartment complex that evening, having just driven for three hours and ingested a Cialis pill, his walk up the stairs to what he believed was the woman's second-floor apartment was abruptly halted by Faulkner County sheriff's deputies.
The deputies, who found condoms in Willins' pocket, some lubricant and a "strap-on" penis in his car, informed him that there was no woman or girl. It turned out that in more than pages of emails he had exchanged over the previous few days with what he believed was a woman offering her daughter for sex, he was actually talking to a male undercover sheriff's deputy.
The deputy had responded to an ad Willins posted on Craigslist saying he was "looking for really taboo female. Soon, Willins was facing federal charges of attempted enticement of a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity and travel with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor.
The first charge applies to anyone 18 and older who solicits someone younger than 15 to engage in sexual conduct that under Arkansas law would constitute sexual indecency with a child or second-degree sexual assault. The second charge applies to an adult who intends to have sex with someone between the ages of 12 and 16 who is at least four years younger than the adult.
Attorney Kristin Bryant told the six men and six women on the jury in her closing arguments. Willins' attorney, Jack Lassiter of Little Rock, referred to his client's testimony earlier in the day, saying, "He told you he never intended to have sexual relations with this fictitious minor. Lassiter noted that in the emails Willins exchanged with the online persona, he thought he was talking to a year-old woman and never thought he was talking to the girl herself.
