A Newark man was convicted Thursday of attempting to have sex with what he thought was a 12-year-old girl he lured on the Internet and who he drove to meet at a Woodland Park store parking lot on Route 46.
Nigerian native Abel Oderanti reacts as he learns a jury found him guilty.
Nigerian native Abel Oderanti was found guilty of luring, attempted sexual assault and attempted child endangerment by a jury seated before state Superior Court Judge Joseph A. Falcone in Paterson. He is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 12, when he will face as much as 30 years in state prison.
Oderanti hung his head, looking despondent following the verdict’s reading. The defendant, who was free on bail, was remanded by Judge Falcone to the Passaic County Jail pending sentencing. Family members wailed in despair as sheriff’s officers led him out of the courtroom.
The jury did exonerate Oderanti on one count of attempted aggravated sexual assault. While it is not entirely clear what the jury’s rationale was, that count required proof of planned sexual penetration. The attempted sexual assault count that the panel convicted him of required only proof of planned sexual contact of some sort.
While instant message and phone conversations captured by undercover investigators and presented at trial indicated that Oderanti was looking for some sort of sexual liaison, penetration, per se, was never specifically spelled out.
Prosecutors gathered as evidence 16 Instant Message conversations and one recorded phone conversation Oderanti had with an undercover detective posing as a 12-year-old girl in which he expresses interest in having sex with the child. Those discussions were read to and played for the jury, including the undercover detective telling Oderanti she was 12 and a virgin.
The defendant was arrested , in the parking lot of a store on Route 46 in Woodland Park, where he had arranged to meet the “girl.”
Oderanti, 30, testified in his defense. He told jurors under questioning by defense attorney Howard Jacobs of New York City he thought the chat room he was in was strictly for adults and that he assumed the “12-year-old” was actually over 18. He also said someone else had access to his computer, and that he would occasionally leave his desk while in the chat room.
The defense has argued that Oderanti had a limited sexual and romantic history upon coming to the U.S. from Nigeria in 2006 and that he was “naive” and “socially immature” when he went looking for friendship on the web.
The defendant had two condoms on him when he was arrested. Police say he admitted to wanting to have sex with the girl but said he thought she was a more “mature woman.”
Paul De Groot, Passaic County senior assistant prosecutor, argued that Odernati’s assertion that the girl was an adult pretending to be a minor still didn’t quite jibe with the transcripts from Instant Message conversations — and a taped phone conversation — he had with the undercover detective posing as a 12-year-old girl.
The prosecutor read and played the conversations to the jury, during which the defendant allegedly said things such as: “So what kind of friendship do you want, if you’re underage?” and “You’re so young. That means you’re a virgin? You’ve never had sex with a guy before?”