Plan To Sexually Abuse 6-Year-Old Girl Leads To Bowie Man's Guilty Plea

BOWIE, MD — A 36-year-old Bowie man has pleaded guilty to a federal charge of traveling with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct after law enforcement said he had arranged to met with a fictitious 6-year-old girl in Washington, D.C., in order to sexually abuse her.

According to the government’s evidence, in May 2024, Nathaniel Lamar Nelson Scott began communicating via an encrypted messaging application with a man he met on a fetish website. Scott believed the man to be a pedophile who was sexually abusing his six-year-old daughter. However, the man was an undercover officer with the MPD–FBI Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force.

Over the next several days, Scott engaged in graphic conversations about sexually abusing the child. On June 5, Scott arranged with the undercover officer to meet and sexually abuse the child. He traveled from Maryland to a pre-arranged meeting place in Washington, D.C., and was arrested. Scott has remained in custody since his arrest, prosecutors say.

Scott pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to one count of travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct. Judge Dabney L. Friedrich has scheduled a sentencing hearing for Jan. 28, 2025.

Scott faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.