FORT SMITH — An Oklahoma man was sentenced in federal court Jan. 7 to life in prison after pleading guilty to charges resulting from a sting operation in which he thought a mother was offering her daughter, a minor, to him for sex.
Jack Lambeth, 58, of Midwest City, Okla., entered his plea before U.S. District Judge P.K. Holmes III to a charge of traveling interstate with the intent to engage in aggravated sexual abuse of a minor.
As a previously convicted sex offender, he also was sentenced to 10 additional years in prison, with the sentences to be served consecutively. Lambeth was convicted in state court in Oklahoma in 1990 for indecent or lewd acts with a child younger than 16, forcible rape, oral sodomy, and rape by instrumentation.
According to a federal probable cause affidavit, a Fort Smith police officer working undercover to target people using the Internet for illegal sexual activity made contact with Lambeth in an Internet chat room in March.
The officer posed as a mother who offered her 8-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter for sexual exploitation.
Lambeth expressed interest in the proposal with the girl and communication continued between the two throughout March. At one point, he admitted he had been to prison for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl, according to the affidavit.
Lambeth, a truck driver, told the officer on March 27 that he would be in the Fort Smith area and wanted to have an encounter with the girl at a motel, the affidavit said. On March 28, he called the officer to say he was just dropped off at a motel in Van Buren. Police went to the location and arrested Lambeth.