Child-sex seeker sentenced to prison
After years of pain, home builder Ross Edward Paulson, records say, turned to drugs and booze for relief. Then he turned to Craigslist for sex with a 13-year-old girl.
But the girl never existed and the “father” offering her for sex was really an undercover agent participating in a law-enforcement crackdown on sexual exploitation and abuse of children.
Paulson, who lived in Wisconsin before moving to Altamonte Springs last year, was sentenced in Orlando on Wednesday to 20 years in federal prison for trying to have sex with a child. Paulson, 60, pleaded guilty on Nov. 30 to a charge of attempted sexual enticement of a minor. In a letter to U.S. District Judge Paul G. Byron, Paulson said he was under pressure from work and wanted to be strong for his wife, despite his excessive pain.
“In coping with that I experimented with the combinations of alcohol, prescription medication, and marijuana,” the handwritten letter says. “Any amount of physical pain does not compare with the emotional pain I have caused my family.”
Paulson responded to a Craigslist advertisement in July titled “Looking for other Daddies.”
“Never did this before but I am very interested,’’ he said in a chat with the “father.”
They agreed on a meeting place — a convenience store at Barnes and Fisk boulevards in the Rockledge community of Brevard County. He went there at 5:30 p.m. July 23 and was arrested. He brought condoms, sex toys and unspecified costumes.
Paulson’s family, including his mother and wife, sent letters to the judge in hopes of leniency. The minimum sentence was 10 years and the maximum was life.
Over the years, Paulson “beat up his body” as a general contractor and carpenter, leaving him suffering from physical problems and pain, his wife said.
“Ross had several surgeries before I ever met him. Since I met him, he has had major reconstructive neck surgery, rotator cuff surgery on his right shoulder, and then a total left shoulder replacement,” she wrote. “He currently has quite a bit of metal holding his body together.”
They moved to Altamonte Springs with plans to flip a house, she said. “Ross’s arrest has been nothing but a shock and tragedy to our family,” she wrote. “This is so utterly out of character for Ross. We have a good marriage where there is love, respect and support for one another. When he is home, he loves to be able to cook, and takes very good care of me.”
His late father was an alcoholic who physically and verbally abused him as a child, his mother said. Once, he rolled his eyes at his father, who responded with punches.
“He kept taunting Ross to ‘stand up and fight him like a man’ which resulted in more punches to the floor,” she wrote. When he was in high school, he came home late one night and his father kicked him out of the house. His mother wasn’t allowed to speak to him for 16 years.
“Ross called me shortly before his arrest took place and told me that he was in so much pain that he had been flat on his back for 3 days,” her letter said. “His character is above reproach. He is a Christian, and is honest.”