An Easton man is headed to prison after being convicted of attempting to coerce a minor last year.
Fifty-five year-old Samuel Charles Hardeman will spend the next 18 years in federal prison, followed by a lifetime supervised release.
According to his plea, from December 11, 2022 through December 26, 2022, Hardeman engaged in conversations with an undercover law enforcement officer who stated they had a 10 year-old daughter. During the conversations, Hardeman expressed how he wanted to have sex with the child, sent a video containing child pornography to the undercover officer, and made plans to drive to New York, where the undercover officer told him they lived, to have sex with the 10 year-old. During a call on December 26, 2022, Hardeman is said to have expressed hesitation about traveling to New York to visit the child. The undercover officer said they did not hear from Hardeman after that time.
On March 14, 2023, a federal search warrant was executed at Hardeman's home and several electronic devices were seized. According to the Justice Department, an examination of one of the phones revealed the encrypted messages account, which Hardeman used to communicate with the undercover officer, a text thread between Hardeman and the officer, photos sent to Hardeman by the undercover officer at Hardeman's request, the photos and videos that Hardeman sent to the officer, and dozens of images and videos depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Forensic examinations of several other electronic devices and Hardeman's Could storage account reportedly recovered additional images of child sex abuse material, including bestiality.
Hardeman had a previous conviction in a 2002 case in the Northern District of Georgia, according to the DOJ, for use of a computer to entice a child to engage in sexual activity. He was sentenced to 174 months in prison. A federal judge has ordered that, upon his release from prison, Hardeman must continue to register as a sex offender in the places he resides, where he's an employee, and where he's a student,.
