GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A Massachusetts man is in police custody after they say he spent months planning a trip to West Michigan for the sole purpose of sexually assaulting children.
According to a criminal complaint filed Friday in the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan, Jonathan Ledoux became the target of a Homeland Security Investigations probe after he sent a message to one of their undercover agents in an “incest chatroom” on Nov. 16, 2018.
The undercover agent’s account implied he was a single mother with two young daughters. Ledoux allegedly told the undercover agent, “I definitely would like to find a woman like you, with some young girls to play with (winking emoticon),” in some of their initial conversations.
The criminal complaint outlines multiple alleged conversations between Ledoux and the undercover agent containing graphic descriptions of sexual assault on children.
Ledoux allegedly told the undercover agent, in regards to the non-existent girls, that he would like to pull them out of school and “teach them that if they told anyone that they’d be in serious trouble.”
The conversations later moved to popular messing app KIK, where Ledoux is accused of plotting an actual trip to Grand Rapids to visit the woman’s children. Pregnancy is brought up several times in the chat logs, Ledoux allegedly saying his preoccupation with it comes from “a strong desire to spread my genetics. Like a 15th century European dynasty.”
The lawsuit alleges Ledoux sent the agent links to two videos Dec. 4. In the videos, investigators say Ledoux expresses concerns that he could be in the middle of being set up in “some sort of lure to catch a predator.”
He allegedly goes on to say he wants to capture his thoughts within these videos in case he is immediately arrested when he arrives at the airport in Grand Rapids, apparently concerned mostly with how his parents would react.
“I would rather disappear in a jail cell and have them never know what happened to me than for them to find out their perfect, good, morally sound son would go out to meet a complete stranger and attempt to have sex with a minor.”
According to the charges, days later, Ledoux sent the undercover a photograph of two collars purchased for the children to wear while being assaulted.
On March 7, Ledoux allegedly sent another photo– this time of an HIV test taken.
Investigators say Ledoux expressed second thoughts about actually flying to West Michigan, but eventually decided he had to do it, saying, “if I’m going to jail for this then I might as well get it over with.”
Ledoux was arrested without a struggle at Gerald R. Ford International Airport on Friday, March 22. Investigators say he admitted to traveling to Grand Rapids with the intention of sexually abusing two underage girls. He is currently facing charges of ‘attempted coercion and enticement’ and ‘travel in interstate commerce with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor’.
