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Arizona man sentenced to prison for traveling to WA to have sex with fake minor

Jul 11, 2025, 5:02 AM

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A Seattle Police Department patch is seen on an officer's uniform, July 17, 2016, in Seattle. (Photo: Ted S. Warren, The Associated Press)

(Photo: Ted S. Warren, The Associated Press)

A man from Arizona was sentenced to prison for traveling to Washington to have sex with a fictitious minor.

Steven J. Migdon, 73, will spend four years in prison for attempting to have sex with a 13-year-old boy, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington on Thursday.

Migdon was arrested in August following an online investigation by the Seattle Police Department (SPD) and the FBI. An undercover agent posted as a 13-year-old on a teen chatroom platform, and Migdon replied. The agent then made the communication more explicit.

Migdon, according to the attorney’s office, asked for sexually explicit images from the fake teen and sent pictures of his face and penis to the agent.

On August 5, Migdon flew from Tucson, Arizona, to Everett, Washington, to meet with the 13-year-old in a hotel room. But to his surprise, he was arrested.

Police find images of child sexual abuse on Arizona man’s phone

Agents went through Migdon’s phone and found he had sent sexually explicit images to other children and that he had images of child sexual abuse on his phone.

“Today we are here to confront the ugliness of what you did over 10 days,” U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead said at the sentencing hearing, according to the release. “The images you had on your phone represented real children and real abuse. These are among the most serious crimes we see in federal court, the crimes that exploit children.”

Migdon was ordered to pay $3,000 in restitution to a fund for the victims in the child sex abuse images on his phone. He was also required to register as a sex offender and will be on 10 years of supervised release after prison.

“Despite age and experience, Migdon spent ten days communicating with a person he believed to be a 13-year-old boy,” Assistant United States Attorney Cecelia Gregson wrote to the court, according to the release. “Worse, the content of his phone confirmed his chatting and travel conduct were not stand-alone. Migdon had been sexually communicating with unidentified minors in the days leading up to his travel to Washington for sex with a fictitious child.”

The case was part of nationwide initiative Project Safe Childhood.

Follow Julia Dallas on X. Read her stories here. Submit news tips here.

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