Man in sex sting: ‘I was tricked’

US judge orders 10-year prison term

When a young Fort Lauderdale lifeguard was arrested in an FBI sting after showing up for sex with someone he thought was a 9-year-old girl last year, his family and friends were devastated.

But nobody could have imagined the scenario that former competitive swimmer Joshua Asseraf explained to a judge in court this week before he was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.

Asseraf, 22, of Sunrise, said he was “catfished” over a two-year period by someone he met online and knew as “Jenna.” He told the judge that he believed he was communicating with a 20-year-old woman, who egged him on to engage in more and more risky sexual behavior.

His attorney said she believes Asseraf was actually communicating with an older man who lives in Indiana. That man tricked him by pretending to be Jenna in text messages and online chats, sending photos of a young woman and fabricating a convoluted back story. Asseraf never met Jenna in person, but he bought a diamond engagement ring for her.

Asseraf said he didn’t for one moment think the catfishing scenario was an excuse for his own criminal

conduct. He said he just wanted to explain everything that led up to his arrest.

“I’m happy the FBI stopped me because I was heading to a very dark place,” Asseraf told the judge during his sentencing hearing on Wednesday in federal court in West Palm Beach. He said he wants treatment and counseling.

Asseraf was caught after he started communicating online with someone he thought was a father who was willing to let Asseraf have sex with his 9-year-old daughter while the dad watched. In fact, Asseraf was in contact with an undercover law enforcement officer.

In online chats, Asseraf spelled out in explicit detail how he wanted to abuse the child, court records show.

In one message he sent the undercover officer, he asked if the dad would make a video of the abuse for him so he could watch it again: “Not everyday I [expletive] a 9 y[ear-old] lol,” he wrote. “Of course it won’t be [shared] anywhere I don’t want to be in jail lol It’s just for me.”

“Catfishing,” which spawned a documentary and a popular MTV series, involves creating a fictional online persona to lure someone into a deceptive relationship. Catfishes often create elaborate tales about their lives and manufacture improbable reasons why they never show up for in-person meetings.

Celebrity victims of catfishing include NFL linebacker Manti Te’o, MTV host Nev Schulman and Meri Brown, one of the polygamist wives on the TLC reality show, Sister Wives.

Officials, including the prosecutor who filed charges against Asseraf and the federal judge who sentenced him to prison, said they believed Asseraf told the truth about what happened.

His attorney, Teresa Williams, told the Sun Sentinel that Jenna never told her client to have sex with a 9-year-old but that he was “specifically directed to get together with someone who was 14 or 15.” Williams said that Asseraf never had sexual contact with any minors.

Senior U.S. District Judge Daniel T.K. Hurley said he believed Asseraf was being candid about the “bizarre Jenna scenario” but said it only explained the background to Asseraf’s intent to commit a crime against a child.

Prosecutor Catherine Koontz said authorities have uncovered no evidence about whether or not Jenna was real.

“I do believe he fully believed this individual existed and that he was in love with her,” Koontz told the judge.

“There’s more going on than that, as bizarre and strange as that [catfish scenario] would be, I believe it’s symptomatic of some other problems,” the judge said. “I really think Mr. Asseraf needs some very serious psychological help.”

Asseraf worked as a parttime lifeguard at the city’s Aquatic Complex, formerly the International Swimming Hall of Fame, on Fort Lauderdale beach, for about five months.

In December, he pleaded guilty to attempting to entice a child into sexual activity.

He told the judge he had an unconventional but “wonderful” childhood with his “amazing” family. The family, originally from France, traveled the world and raised their children on a sailboat before settling in Broward County about 10 years ago.

Asseraf gravitated to competitive swimming and stuck to an exhausting training schedule – four hours per day, six days a week, from age 13 to 19.

Asseraf, a French citizen, said his family’s finances and their immigration status meant he did not qualify for any kind of financial aid for college so a sports scholarship was his only option.

According to court records, he was offered a swimming scholarship to attend Florida Atlantic University in 2012, but it was rescinded on the first day of school because only a limited number of spots on the college swim team could go to international students.

Devastated, Asseraf transferred to Broward College and said he became depressed because he felt all of his effort and training had been wasted. He said he had never dated anyone in high school or college.

Williams said her client “became entrenched in the world of internet sexual fantasy” and began meeting up for fleeting, casual sexual encounters with adult women he met online.

About two years ago, he answered a personal ad and began communicating with Jenna, using the Kik app. Asseraf said he believed he was in love with her.

“They were engaged. My client purchased a diamond ring for her,” Williams said in an interview with the newspaper. But there were always unforeseen complications that prevented her from accepting the ring in person, the lawyer said.

Asseraf told the judge that Jenna told him that she and her wealthy family would enable him to help his parents financially. She said her dad, who she claimed was a lawyer, could also help them become U.S. citizens. The family has legal permanent resident status in the U.S., Williams said.

Among the lies that Jenna told him, according to the defense, was that her father would give the couple a $1 million wedding gift, that they would live in an expensive home and that her dad would provide him with a wonderful career at his law firm, Williams said.

But the entire relationship took place via texting and emailing. After a while, Jenna said she wanted an open relationship and insisted he should have sex with women he met online. She ordered him to send her photographs and videos of those intimate encounters, Asseraf said.

“I actually thought this person was real,” Asseraf told the judge.

Williams, the lawyer, said the Jenna persona had a volatile temper and kept pushing Asseraf to engage in inappropriate sexual activity and to try to obtain “video that was more and more over the edge.” She often made “suggestions” that he should have sex with a woman with a specific hair color or ethnic background and became angry if he didn’t do what she said, according to the attorney.

All of the videos were consensual recordings Asseraf made with adult women, Williams told the judge. She said the FBI found no evidence of any sexual encounters with real minors.

Asseraf’s family knew about the relationship with Jenna and observed that they texted almost constantly, but they knew nothing about the sexual aspect of his life, according to the defense.

Williams said her young client, who was about 20 when the relationship started, was completely deceived because of the incredible level of detail that Jenna offered about her life. She claimed her older brother was a successful soccer player and sent a photo, which the defense later figured out was of a real-life Australian soccer player.

Williams said she and Asseraf’s family got only so far with their investigation. They said they hope law enforcement will now investigate the Jenna persona and figure out if “she” should face criminal charges for requesting sexually explicit videos of minors.

Prosecutor Koontz told the judge she had no doubt that Asseraf, who showed up with two stuffed animal toys as gifts, intended to sexually abuse the child.

And the judge said he, too, believed that Asseraf intended to have sex with the fictitious child.

The prosecution recommended that Asseraf should serve the minimum punishment allowed by law: 10 years in federal prison. The judge agreed and ordered that Asseraf must undergo sex offender treatment and counseling in prison and after his release. Because he is a permanent resident, not a citizen, Asseraf will be deported after serving his punishment, authorities said.

“I was so wrapped up in this nightmare,” Asseraf told the judge. “It’s no excuse, just an explanation of what happened.”

Asseraf