A federal grand jury indicted a Rhinelander man Tuesday on three charges related to child sex crimes.
Police say they found evidence that Paul Osterman, 35, solicited sex with a 13-year-old from Illinois on the MeetMe social media site.
Osterman is also facing trafficking a child charges in Lincoln and Marathon Counties following his arrest last September.
The first count accuses Osterman of soliciting child sex in exchange for money in July 2019. The second and third counts accuse him of traveling to Illinois from Wisconsin with purpose of engaging in sex with a child.
If convicted on either of the first two counts, Osterman could be sentenced up to life in prison.
This 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 U.S. Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (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.
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Wisconsin Department of Justice’s Division of Criminal Investigation, and the Oneida County Sherriff’s Office.
