JOLIET, Ill. — A man who used the popular, youth-oriented MySpace.com Web site to arrange a sexual tryst with an underage Naperville girl has been sentenced to two years and two months in prison for that crime.
Will County Circuit Court Judge Daniel Rozak meted out the prison term to Jay D. Coffield, 44, of Morris, state’s attorney James Glasgow confirmed Monday in a written statement.
Coffield pleaded guilty Friday to a felony charge of indecent solicitation of a child. The allegation stemmed from his efforts earlier this year to arrange a sexual rendezvous with a 14-year-old Naperville girl.
The girl’s 21-year-old cousin contacted Naperville police Detective Rich Wistocki on May 22, after discovering “inappropriate comments” directed at the teenager on the girl’s MySpace page, Glasgow said.
“Taking a page from the online watchdog group Perverted Justice, this amateur sleuth set up her own undercover account online and began talking to Coffield online,” Glasgow said of the girl’s cousin.
She then turned her account and other information over to Wistocki, the Naperville Police Department’s Internet Crimes Unit investigator, Glasgow said.
Wistocki, posing as the teenager, continued corresponding with Coffield, who used the MySpace screen name of Mistercee42.
Coffield ultimately suggested the girl meet him the evening of June 9 in a coffee shop near 95th Street and Route 59 on Naperville’s far southwest side. He indicated he would then take her to DuPage River Park, near Royce Road and Naper Boulevard on the city’s far southeast side, where they would have sex, police said in June.
Coffield arrived at the coffee shop around 6:15 p.m. and was arrested immediately. Coffield, who had no criminal record at the time, told police it was the first time he had tried to arrange a meeting with a girl he had chatted with over the Internet.
“No longer an anonymous Internet surfer looking for vulnerable children, Jay Coffield now will have a public prison sentence and his face online among other Illinois registered sex offenders,” Glasgow said.
“Instead of just picking up the pieces after a child has been violated, we were able to expose and punish a predator before a child’s life was tragically affected.”
