An Ogden man has been ordered to spend 5 1/2 years in federal prison for trying to entice a minor to have sex — a crime he committed soon after completing a sentence in Utah state prison for earlier sex offenses.
Jason Wayne Jones, 38, also will be on five years of supervised release following his release from prison under the sentence imposed Wednesay by U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby.
Jones had pleaded guilty last July to enticement of a minor for illegal sexual activity for soliciting a 13-year-old girl — who actually was an undercover detective posing as a minor — over the internet.
In February 2010, state prosecutors charged Jones in Ogden’s 2nd District Court with two counts of third-degree felony unlawful sexual relations with a 16- or 17-year-old. Under a deal with prosecutors, Jones pleaded guilty to one of those counts and was sentenced in April 2011 to a zero-to-five-year prison term, court records show.
Jones also pleaded guilty in 2011 to a reduced class A misdemeanor count of sexual battery in Provo’s 4th District Court and was sentenced to probation and 120 days in jail. His probation was later revoked because of the Ogden crime and he was sentenced to one year in jail, with the term to run concurrently with the prison sentence, court records show.
After serving his entire sentence, Jones was released from prison on March 26, 2016. Prosecutors allege the former inmate — who by then was a registered sex offender — began chatting on the internet with the “girl” in mid-September 2016.
On Oct. 27, 2016, Jones went to a Provo park with the intention of meeting the girl and going to her residence to have sex, according to court records. He was arrested and charged with state felony counts of enticing a minor by internet and dealing in harmful materials to a minor.
The case was transferred to federal court a few months later and the state charges were dropped.
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