Image Credit: Patrick Hawley / LinkedIn & Canva
The Tennessee Conservative Staff –
A Chattanooga attorney charged with sex crimes involving a 14-year-old girl is set to take a plea deal in the case.
Patrick Bryant Hawley will plead guilty in federal court to sexual exploitation of children. The minimum sentence for that charge is 15 years in prison.
In exchange for his guilty plea, prosecutors will ask for the dismissal of six additional criminal charges against Hawley, including animal crushing, coercion, enticement, and receipt/possession/distribution of child pornography.
Hawley was arrested in November 2024 after going into online chat rooms and talking to individuals about potentially having sex with their daughters.
He unknowingly had conversations with undercover agents who were able to identify him after seeing his name on a certificate hanging on the wall in a digital photo he shared.
He was arrested when he arrived to meet an undercover FBI agent, who Hawley thought was another person interested in pedophilia.
Investigators learned that Hawley spent a great deal of time in chat rooms on the dark web, focused on sharing child pornography.
He also communicated daily for two months with a 14-year-old girl in Pennsylvania and “solicited, possessed, and distributed” child pornography with the girl.
