Attorney Gets 14 Years for Sex-Abuse Charges

OKLAHOMA CITY (CN) - An Oklahoma City attorney was sentenced Wednesday to 14 years in federal prison for traveling to Peru to have sex with an underage girl.

Michael Dean Billings, 61, previously admitted to flying to Iquitos, Peru, from January 2011 to February 2013 to have sex with a Peruvian girl under the age of 18.

Billings was indicted in October 2014 on three charges: conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of children, conspiracy to travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual contact and conspiracy to engage in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places.

Prosecutors said Billings and others "conspired to commit sex trafficking of children by recruiting and obtaining children in Peru to engage in commercial sex acts," and conspired to travel from Oklahoma City to Iquitos, Peru, for that purpose.

"Billings and others known and unknown to the grand jury, conspired and agreed with each other to knowingly, in and affecting interstate and foreign commerce, recruit, entice, harbor, transport, provide, obtain and maintain by any means [victims] knowing and in reckless disregard of the fact that force, threats of force, fraud and coercion ... that the victims had not attained the age of 18 years and would be caused to engage in commercial sex acts," the indictment stated.

Billings pleaded guilty in November 2015. He was sentenced Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange, according to Western Oklahoma U.S. Attorney Mark A. Yancey.

He had faced up to 30 years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine and registration as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

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