A woman from Surrey has been arrested and charged in Washington, DC after a federal agent posed as a father trying to arrange sex for his kids, aged nine and 10.
Theresa Goddard, 45, is in jail in Virginia.
“Agents began corresponding with this woman, responding to an ad that she had posted online; they talked over the course of several weeks and eventually arranged that she would come and meet them at Dulles Airport,” says Matt Zapatosky with the Washington Post.
“This agent was posing as a divorced father with two children,” he tells us. “The agent pulled [her baggage] off the baggage carousel for her, gave her a hug, and then other agents descended on her and took her into custody.”
Zapatosky says even investigators were surprised after they started responding to an online ad. “The agent kind of expressed some disbelief to her. He asked ‘Are you really a woman who is interest in this?’ And she said she was.”
“The children, of course, were made-up; the agent was not a father with two young children,” notes Zapatosky.
Goddard is charged with attempting to persuade, induce, entice, and coerce a minor to engage in sexual activity.
Prosecuters are still waiting to see what plea will be entered.