SAN ANTONIO -- A federal jury on Friday found a man guilty of trying to sell his girlfriend's 5-year-old daughter for sex.Jurors returned the guilty verdict against Sean Michael Block after deliberating about 2½ hours. Block was on trial on a charge of aiding and abetting the sale of a child and distributing child pornography. He could face a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Block's defense attorney, Jimmy Parks Jr., said he was disappointed with the verdict because Block never went through with the scheme. He also said it set a dangerous precedent.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracy Braun said that sexually explicit e-mail correspondence between the defendant and Jennifer Richards, the child's mother, and other testimony led jurors to their decision.
"It's hard for normal people to hear that stuff," Braun said. "It is hard enough for people to realize, that there are others in our community that would sell children for sex and talk about it and plan it and find sexual gratification in it."
Block didn't take the stand in his own defense after Richards testified that the defendant threatened her and forced her to go along with a plan to sell her daughter in exchange for a car and an apartment.
Richards, who pleaded guilty to similar charges earlier this year, was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.
Block will be sentenced in July, when his lawyers said they will ask for the minimum 30 years in prison, while government attorneys will ask for the maximum sentencing, which is life in prison.
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