Plan to sexually abuse 6-year-old leads to Bowie man’s guilty plea

BOWIE, MD – A 36-year-old Bowie man has pleaded guilty to a federal charge of traveling with the intent to engage in illegal sexual conduct after law enforcement authorities said he had a meeting with a fictitious 6-year-old girl in Washington agreed. DC to sexually abuse her.

According to the government, in May 2024, Nathaniel Lamar Nelson Scott began communicating through an encrypted messaging application with a man he met on a fetish website. Scott believed the man was a pedophile who was sexually abusing his six-year-old daughter. However, the man was an undercover agent with the MPD-FBI Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force.

Over the next few days, Scott had graphic conversations about the child’s sexual abuse. On June 5, Scott arranged to meet with the undercover agent and sexually abuse the child. He traveled from Maryland to a prearranged meeting point in Washington, D.C. and was arrested. According to prosecutors, Scott remains in custody since his arrest.

Scott pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to one count of traveling with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct. Judge Dabney L. Friedrich has scheduled a sentencing hearing for January 28, 2025.

Scott faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.