Casper Man Sentenced For Federal Sex Crime
A Casper man will spend five months in prison for driving to California to pick up a teenage girl and bringing her to Wyoming last year, according to federal court records.
Luke Horneck also will be placed on supervised probation for five years, undergo a mental health evaluation, and receive cognitive behavioral treatment among other conditions of his sentence handed down by U.S. District Court Judge Alan Johnson in Cheyenne during a two-hour hearing on Tuesday.
Johnson also ordered him to pay a fee of $750 to partially defray costs of treatment, a $100 special assessment, and restitution of $4,877.40, according to the minutes of the sentencing.
Horneck, who was 22 at the time of his arrest, pleaded guilty in December to the sole count of “travel with intent to engage in illegal sexual conduct." In exchange for his plea, the prosecution and defense agreed Horneck would serve not more than 36 months imprisonment.
Family members and friends submitted letters to the court, urging the judge to be lenient.
The case began Sept. 13 when Casper police responded to a call from a California man who told them a 14-year-old girl had run away, and she might be with Horneck in the Casper area.
Police later found Horneck and the girl at a local hotel.
When interviewed, Horneck and the girl told detectives and an FBI agent they had been friends for more than a year, and put together the plan for her to leave California in August.
He was initially charged in state court, but a federal grand jury indicted him in late September. In the federal system, he could have faced up to 30 years imprisonment and between five years and lifetime probation.
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