A San Antonio man was convicted Friday of trying to sell his girlfriend's 5-year-old daughter for sex after jurors heard two days of lurid testimony describing how a child predator would use her.
Sean Michael Block, 40, faces life in prison after being found guilty of one count of trying to sell a child and another of distributing child pornography. Jennifer Louis Richards, 25, pleaded guilty to a child-sale charge in April and testified against her former boyfriend.
During the trial, some jurors partly covered their faces or look visibly disgusted as they heard sexually explicit conversations between the couple.
Both face up to life in prison.
Richards testified that she wrote out the conditions on which she would sell her daughter to a child predator, who was actually an FBI informant. The San Antonio Express-News reported that Richards testified she would first teach her daughter to have sex, and then supervise while the girl was with the man.
In exchange for giving up the girl, prosecutors say Block offered Richards a used car and an apartment. Discussions of the sale evolved from the couple's bondage and role-playing lifestyle.
Richards testified that she "wanted to raise my daughters in a sexually open house where sex was not taboo," according to the newspaper.
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FBI agent Rex Miller said that when Block was being questioned, he claimed to the sale was part of a sting he was running and that he planned to turn the evidence over to law enforcement. Block's attorney had urged the jury not to convict Block for what he thought and said in texts and chats.
The girl and her 10-month-old sister were never sexually abused and have been placed with one of Richards' relatives.
