A Michigan man admitted Tuesday to sexually assaulting a then-12 year-old girl in 2009 when he was a sailor stationed at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery.
Matthew Boyd, 33, of Warren, a Detroit suburb, pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual abuse of a minor, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
The case is in federal court, in U.S. District Court in Portland, because the abuse took place on federal property.
Boyd was 20 and on active duty in the U.S. Navy when he began communicating with the victim, who lived in Texas, over the social networking site Myspace.com, according to court documents. In August 2009, the girl’s mother gave her permission to visit Boyd in Maine.
He picked the victim up at Logan International Airport in Boston and took her to the base hotel, where she stayed for a week, court documents said. During that time Boyd sexually abused the girl. At one point during the visit, he gave her a Plan B or “morning after” pill to ensure she had not become pregnant.
The sexual abuse came to light in 2020 after the victim reported it. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service taped a phone call the victim made to Boyd, now married with a daughter, in which he told the victim that his behavior was “inappropriate.”
“But I had sex with you,” he said, according to a portion of a transcript of the call included in a court document. “You were 12 and I was 20. And I shouldn’t have done that. I should’ve known better, but I didn’t. I didn’t appropriate the judgment that I should’ve, and it’s cost you, apparently, quite a lot over the years.”
Boyd remains free on bail.
He faces up to 15 years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000. Boyd also could be ordered to pay restitution to the victim for counseling services.
___
(c) 2022 the Bangor Daily News
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
