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Two Indiana men, one of whom was a former high school teacher, were sentenced at U. S. District Court in Owensboro in separate cases for traveling to Kentucky to engage in sexual conduct with who they thought was a minor but was an undercover officer.

The U.S. Attorney’s office for the Western District of Kentucky, said Cody Sean McCormick, 28, who had been a teacher in Evansville, was sentenced to 10 years in prison followed by a lifetime term of supervised release for traveling across state lines with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor, attempted enticement of a minor, and attempted transfer of obscene material to a minor.

In addition, according to court documents, Bradley Linderman, 36, was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison, followed by a 10-year term of supervised release, for traveling across state lines with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor, attempted enticement of a minor, and attempted transfer of obscene material to a minor.

The U.S. Attorney’s office says the two men used the internet to communicate with an undercover agent they believed to be either a 14- or 15-year-old girl for the purposes of engaging in sexual contact. They travelled from Indiana to Owensboro to meet the person who turned out to be an undercover agent to engage in sexual conduct.

Both cases were the result of a joint federal, state, and local operation called Operation Angel, aimed at making federal arrests of individuals who preyed upon children in the Owensboro area.  The United States Secret Service, the Kentucky Office of the Attorney General, the Kentucky State Police, and the Owensboro Police Department, were all involved in investigating the cases.

The cases were brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.  Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood uses federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims.