The U.S. Attorney's Office has dropped its prosecution of a New Mexico man accused of arranging over the Internet to meet an underage girl in Layton for sex after his attorney argued that the stress of the case could kill him.
At the request of prosecutors, U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups dismissed the case last week without prejudice, meaning the charge of enticement for illegal sexual activity could be refiled later.
The defense attorney for Reinaldo Canton, an Air Force major who is now retired, said his client has an aortic dissection, a life-threatening condition in which a tear develops in the large blood vessel branching off the heart.
Canton, 45, had agreed to a plea bargain but was taken to a hospital after he suffered severe pain while preparing to board a plane from New Mexico to Salt Lake City last summer for a court hearing, according to a motion to dismiss the case by defense lawyer Benjamin Hamilton. He said Canton was then diagnosed with the heart condition.
Continuing the case could increase his blood pressure and cause his death, which would violate his right to due process, Hamilton argued.
Prosecutors allege that Canton had a series of chats with what he thought was a 15-year-old girl in the spring of 2007 and sent photographs of himself during these talks.
He allegedly suggested meeting at the Layton Hills Mall in April 2007 and returning to his Ogden hotel to have sex. The girl was actually an undercover adult agent, and Canton was arrested at the mall.
Canton has said he went to meet the girl to see how Internet safety programs work and planned to ask the teen why she was sneaking around behind her parents' backs. He denied that he would have participated in sexual activity with her and said he would have told her that the Internet is a "scary" place.
