KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – On April 13, 2022, a federal jury convicted a registered sex offender, Everett Eugene Miller, Jr., 55, of Sunbright, Tennessee, of enticement of a minor for sex, transporting a minor in interstate commerce for sex, committing those offenses while being required to register as a sex offender, and attempting to escape from the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service. As a result of the convictions, the defendant is subject to a prison sentence of 20 years up to life. Sentencing will be scheduled at a later date before the Honorable Katherine A. Crytzer, United States District Judge.
According to the evidence at trial, the investigation began when the Morgan County Sheriff’s Office received an anonymous tip that Miller, an over-the-road truck driver, was transporting a minor across state lines. When asked, the minor revealed that the defendant had transported her across-state lines and had coerced her to have sex with him in the sleeper cab of his truck. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted consensual forensic exams of the minor’s cellular telephones, one of which the defendant had provided to the minor without her mother’s knowledge. A forensic exam pursuant to a search warrant was also performed on the defendant’s cellular telephone. The forensic exams revealed evidence which confirmed that the defendant had communicated extensively with the minor and that he had transported her across country. Additionally, witness testified that, after the defendant had been arrested and was detained in federal custody, he tried to escape from custody while at a medical facility to which he had been transported for a heart procedure.
The FBI conducted the investigation with assistance from the Morgan County Sheriff’s Office.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Matthew T. Morris and Jennifer Kolman represented the United States in court.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood (PSC), 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 the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, PSC 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 PSC, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.
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