The ‘minor’ turned was a Frederick County Sheriff’s Deputy.
Scott Paul Locastro (Photo from Frederick County State’s Attorney’s Office)
Frederick, Md (KM) A Howard County man who traveled to Frederick County earlier this year in hopes to meeting a 13-year-old girl he solicited for sex on line was in Circuit Court on Friday. Scott Paul Locastro, 51, of West Friendship pleaded guilty to one count of sexual solicitation of a minor. Judge Scott Rolle sentenced Locastro to ten years in prison with all but two years suspended. The Maryland Sentencing guidelines for such offenses is probation to two years.
The State’s Attorney’s Office says Locastro will be serving his time in the Maryland Division of Corrections. He had been incarcerated at the Frederick County Adult Detention Center since his arrest earlier this year.
After he’s gets out of prison, Locastro will be placed on five years of supervised COMET (Collaborative Offender Management Enforcement Treatment) probation which requires he undergo psycho-sexual evaluation and sex offender treatment. He must have no unsupervised contact with minor children. Locastro will also be required to register as a Tier 2 sex offender. That means he must stay on the sex offender registry for 25 years.
The Sheriff’s Office says Locastro used a cellular messaging application to contact a person he thought was a 13-year-old girl, engaging in sexual conservations and soliciting her for sex acts. He told the girl he was coming to Frederick, and both agreed on a location where they would meet. Previously, Locastro had asked to come to the girl’s house, and hide in her closet, according to the State’s Attorney’s Office, in a statement.
The “minor:” he was communicating with was actually a Sheriff’s Office detective posing as a 13-year-old girl. Locastro was arrested without incident in January when he came to Frederick.
By Kevin McManus