Sex offender sentenced, likely to be deported

Nafir Tahmid of Bangladesh responded to Craigslist post for sex with 13-year-old girl

WEST CHESTER » Nafir Tahmid will be getting out of Chester County Prison soon, but he won’t be free.

The native of Bangladesh is expected to be handed over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities upon his parole, according to his attorney and the prosecutor in the criminal case against him. He will then very likely be deported to the south Asian nation he grew up in and from which he came to the United States to study finance five years ago.

On Tuesday, Tahmid was found guilty of improperly responding to an online advertisement to have a sexual encounter with a person who identified themselves as a 13-year-old girl. In reality, the poster was an imposter — a special agent with the state Attorney General’s Child Predator Task Force.

The jury deliberated for about two hours before returning with their verdict in Common Pleas Senior Judge Thomas G. Gavin’s courtroom. It was the second trial for Tahmid; the first ended with a hung jury and a mistrial in March.

Gavin sentenced Tahmid, 28, of Philadelphia to six to 23 months in county prison, with an additional year of probation, on counts of unlawful contact with a minor, attempted involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, and criminal use of a communications facility. The judge, however, noted that since he is scheduled to be deported back to Bangladesh, he would likely not have to fulfill the terms of the sentence, including registering as a sex offender.

“Given the fact that he is going to be deported it make no sense to continue to incarcerate him,” Gavin told Assistant Attorney General Michelle Lynn Laucella, who prosecuted the case, and defense attorney David Clark, who represented Tahmid.

Gavin said he had little doubt that Tahmid would ever re-offend even if he were allowed to stay in the country, but that he was almost certain he would not be allowed to re-enter the United States. He had been living here since 2013 on a student visa, and had earned a masters in business administration at Ashland University in Ohio. He was looking for employment in Philadelphia when he was arrested.

In August, Tahmid began corresponding with the person he thought was the underage girl through Craigslist. Although the person told him as many as three times that she was 13 year old, he nevertheless asked her if they could meet and have sex. The person, who was actually Special Agent Eric Barlow, arranged to meet Tahmid at a hotel in Tredyffrin, where she suggested she was staying with her family.

When Tahmid arrived around 5:30 p.m. on Aug. 18 at the hotel parking lot on West Swedesford Road, he was taken into custody. He gave an incriminating statement to the agents, suggesting that he knew the other party he had arranged to meet was a 13 year old and that he had intended to have sex with her. He had even brought a condom.

But in explaining what his client said had happened, Clark told the juries that he had been lured to the site by the promise of sex with someone he did not believe was a minor.

In his hour-long testimony, Tahmid said he had found sexual partners on Craigslist previously, and that they were sometimes not who they said they were. He said he assumed that the person he was contacting was in reality an adult.

To solicit sex from a person who holds themselves out to be underage, even if they are a police officer, is against the law.

Tahmid has been housed at the county prison since his arrest.

“This is a strong example of a tremendous opportunity thrown out the window,” Gavin said in the sentencing proceeding. “And you only have yourself to blame.”