March 18, 2016
A 38-year-old Maryland man was charged Tuesday after he allegedly traveled to Delaware County in an effort to meet a teenage boy with plans to engage in underage sex.
Ralph Fisher of Elkton, Maryland, was charged with attempting to entice a minor to engage in sexual conduct, attempting to transfer obscene material to minors, and other charges. He allegedly spent nearly a month chatting and sharing images of child porn with law enforcement officials, according to an indictment released Friday morning by the United States Attorney's Office.
Fisher believed he was chatting with a 15-year-old boy, the indictment alleges.
According to the indictment, between June 15 and July 20 of last year, Fisher engaged in sexually explicit chats over the Internet with “Minor #1” – an online persona he believed was teenage boy – and "attempted to engage Minor #1 in sexual conduct and sent pornographic pictures of himself to Minor #1."
Fisher was arrested on July 20 when he traveled to Delaware County allegedly planning to have sex with the "boy," but was instead met by officials from the Delaware County Criminal Investigation Division, the indictment said.
Fisher is also charged with distributing child pornography to others over the Internet and possessing child pornography on his cell phone, the indictment noted.
If convicted of all charges, Fisher faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison.
