Grass Valley man sentenced to more than 10 years in prison for sexual predation charges

A Grass Valley man was sentenced to more than a decade behind bars for receipt of child pornography and attempting to use the internet to entice a child to engage in sexual activity Friday, officials said.

Samuel C. Thompson, 34, was sentenced Friday to 10 years and four months in prison by a U.S. District Court judge, McGregor W. Scott, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California, announced in a news release.

Court documents showed that Thompson downloaded child pornography from the internet between August 2012 and March 2013. He plead guilty in May 2016, the release said. While Thompson was on supervised pretrial release for that case in 2016, he posted an online advertisement “seeking to meet and teach a ‘younger lover,’ ” the press release said.

An undercover Placer County Sheriff’s detective replied to the advertisement. Thompson was arrested at what he thought would be a sexual encounter with a 13-year-old girl in a park in Auburn, the press release said.

“We can’t arrest our way out of this problem – the real key to combatting online sexual predators is teaching parents and their children about the dangers of online predators and where to go for help,” Ryan L. Spradlin, special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations, said.

HSI conducted the investigation into Thompson’s online pornography, and the Placer County Sheriff’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation carried out the investigation into the attempted online enticement of a minor, according to the news release.