Former Police Officer Gets 10 Years for Minor Sex Attempt

Former Police Officer, School Board Member Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison for Attempted Sex with a Minor 
U.S. Attorney’s Office - Western District of Missouri (816) 426-3122 -  May 14, 2012

KANSAS CITY, MO—David M. Ketchmark, Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a former Lansing, Kansas police officer and school board member was sentenced in federal court today for attempting to entice a minor for illicit sex. William Brian Duncan, 41, of Leavenworth, Kansas, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Howard F. Sachs to 10 years in federal prison without parole. The court also ordered that, following his incarceration, Duncan will be on supervised release for the rest of his life. On October 24, 2011, Duncan pleaded “no contest” to using the Internet to attempt to entice a minor to engage in sexual activity and to crossing the state line to attempt to engage in a sexual act with a minor. Duncan was an officer with the Lansing, Kansas Police Department until November 2010. He had been a DARE officer and coordinator of the Safe Kids program and was named Officer of the Year in 2008. Duncan resigned from the Lansing School Board in November 2010. Duncan had numerous online conversations with a person he believed to be 14 years old. In reality, Duncan was communicating with an undercover law enforcement officer. Duncan corresponded with the undercover officer on multiple occasions in December 2010; many of the conversations were sexual in nature. Duncan made several statements indicative of his criminal intent and desire to engage in sexual activity with the minor. Duncan began making arrangements to meet with the minor in person during an online chat on Tuesday, December 28, 2010. Duncan drove from his residence in Kansas to the meeting location in Missouri the next day with the intent to engage in sex with the 14-year-old minor. When Duncan approached the location, he was pulled over by a Kansas City, Missouri police officer and arrested. This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Teresa Moore and Senior Litigation Counsel Gregg R. Coonrod. It was investigated by the FBI Cyber Crimes Task Force. This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab “Resources.”