A former CEO of a New Jersey funding agency was sentenced Monday to seven years in federal jail for engaging in sexual activity with a teen girl in his private airplane after he set it on autopilot and receiving nude pictures of the girl.
Stephen Bradley Mell, 53, of Far Hills, beforehand pleaded responsible to one depend of interstate journey to interact in illicit sexual conduct and one depend of receipt of kid pornography, in accordance to U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito.
Mell, who goes by his center title Bradley, had been president and chief govt of W.H. Mell Associates, a Summit-based investing agency that specialised in municipal bond markets. The firm’s web site isn’t any longer on-line and a company telephone quantity is now not in service. Mell had been president of the corporate since 1995, in accordance to a web-based profile on the agency’s former web site.
Mell traveled from July to December 2017 “for the purpose of engaging in the production of child pornography and sexual acts with a minor (and) admitted knowingly receiving child pornography,” authorities stated.
Mell was arrested in June 2018 after authorities found he was partaking in a sexual relationship with the girl in Readington and Bedminster townships, authorities stated.Mell communicated with the 15-year-old girl beginning in May 2017 by way of textual content messages and Snapchat and ultimately requested her if she knew how to carry out a sex act, in accordance to the criticism. He invited her to his Far Hills residence the subsequent month, in accordance to federal court docket information.
The two engaged in sexual conduct on June 20 and July 5, 2017, when Mell was 51 years previous and the sufferer below 16 years previous, court docket paperwork said.
On July 20, 2017, Mell flew the girl in his personal plane from Somerset Airport to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, “for the aim of partaking in illicit conduct, particularly, a sexual act with a (minor),” in accordance to the criticism.
On the flight again, Mell put the plane in autopilot and engaged in sex acts with the minor. He additionally acquired sexually express pictures of the girl, in accordance to the criticism.