15-year sentence possible after verdict

After listening to three days of testimony, a Coeur d’Alene jury took 45 minutes Thursday to find a 20-year-old Washington man guilty of enticing a child.

The jury found Kilian Hoyne, a Spokane Valley barista, guilty of enticing a child through the internet or a communication device after he was busted in a sex sting earlier this year.

The conviction carries a maximum 15-year prison sentence. Judge Lansing Haynes scheduled a sentencing hearing for Oct. 13.

Prosecutors said Hoyne traveled to Post Falls in February to have sex with a girl who claimed to be 14 after responding to an ad posted by a police officer as part of a sex sting that snagged five men, one from as far away as Portland.

Hoyne’s defense attorney said the sting was akin to entrapping his client, who thought the website was only open to 18-year-olds.

“To get on the website, you’re supposed to be 18 years old, or older,” Phelps said. “My client understood you had to be 18 to be on the website.”

Anyone who logs into the site assumes they are talking to adults.

“You really have no idea who you’re communicating with,” he said.

Deputy prosecutor Rebecca Perez argued that the sting was carried out appropriately and legally and that Hoyne was not entrapped.

“He was not tricked or trapped or coerced,” Perez said. “Law enforcement acted appropriately. It was a well-run operation, and we appreciate the efforts of all law enforcement involved.”

Prosecutors argued that Hoyne acted entirely on his own volition when he chose to meet with a person who said she was a child.

Called Operation Lonely Heart, the sting started Feb. 8, employed 60 officers — including several women who pretended to be underage girls — and was conducted from the Post Falls Police Department conference room.

Two Spokane men, Paul V. Gauron, 54, and Carl E. Ness, 54, face charges in federal court of traveling with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, which carries up to 30 years in prison, a fine of no more than $250,000 and five years of supervised release.

Convicted sex offender Richard Peterson, 24, of Rathdrum, who was arrested in the sting, was sentenced earlier this year to an underlying 15-year sentence.

Thomas Cartwright, 54, of Post Falls was found guilty of enticing in July and will be sentenced next month. Eric Anderson, of Portland, pleaded guilty to two counts of injury to a child. He will be sentenced Monday in Coeur d’Alene.