Missouri and Arkansas Physician Sentenced to 15 Years for Online Sexual Enticement of a Child

            Fort Smith, Arkansas - Kenneth Elser, Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, announced that Donald Wayne Lamoureaux, age 69, of Hardy, Arkansas, was sentenced today to 15 years in federal prison and ten years of supervised release on one count of Coercion and Enticement of a Minor.  The Honorable P.K. Holmes, III presided over the sentencing hearing in the United States District Court in Fort Smith.  Lamoureaux previously practiced family medicine in Horseshoe Bend, Arkansas and Dexter, Missouri and was also employed at the VA Medical facility in West Plains, Missouri.

            According to court records, officers with the Fort Smith Police Department began an undercover online investigation on January 4, 2015 directed at individuals who were using the internet to target minors for purposes of engaging in illegal sexual activity. During the operation, an undercover officer entered an internet chat room posing as an adult mother offering her four year old daughter for sexual exploitation.  The undercover officer then made contact with the Defendant, later identified as Donald Wayne Lamoureaux.  During the online conversation, Lamoureaux stated that he was a family practice doctor living in Northeast Arkansas, and provided the undercover officer with a picture of himself.  From the information and picture provided, the undercover officer was able to identify the individual as Donald W. Lamoureaux.  Lamoureaux then expressed that he would like to meet the undercover officer and her four year old daughter for sexual purposes.  Following more discussion, the undercover officer and Lamoureaux scheduled a meeting for February 6, 2015 at a hotel in West Plains, Missouri with the supposed and stated purpose for him to sexually abuse the child.  On February 2, 2015, Lamoureaux asked the undercover officer to set up a bank account so he could deposit money for expenses associated with the transportation of the four-year-old child to meet with him.  Lamoureaux made the deposit in the amount of $300.00 on February 4, 2015.  He was arrested in West Plains, Missouri on Friday, February 6, 2015, when he arrived at the meeting location.

            This case was investigated by the Fort Smith Police Department, Homeland Security Investigations, the Northwest Arkansas/ River Valley Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce, the West Plains Police Department, and the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crimes Taskforce.  Assistant United States Attorney Dustin Roberts prosecuted the case for the United States.

            The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and their Criminal Division Child Exploitation and Obscenity Sections (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

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Related court documents may be found on Public Access to Electronic Records Website @www.Pacer.gov