KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A Milan, Missouri, man was sentenced in federal court today for transporting a 12-year-old victim across state lines for criminal sexual activity.

Eh Tah Ger, 24, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Brian C. Wimes to 14 years and two months in federal prison without parole.

On Jan. 23, 2019, Ger pleaded guilty to transporting a minor across state lines with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity. Ger admitted that he picked up a 12-year-old girl in Omaha, Nebraska, on Jan. 7, 2018. Ger lived with the child victim in his vehicle and at a residence in Milan until Jan. 20, 2018, when he was arrested. During that time, Ger admitted, he engaged in sexual intercourse with the child victim multiple times.

According to court documents, the child victim’s parents in Omaha reported her missing on Jan. 9, 2018. The parents told police their daughter had left their home the previous morning and had not yet returned. The mother also said her daughter had gone missing twice over the last month, and in both instances had been found with Ger. Ten days later the child victim was recovered after law enforcement agencies in Nebraska and Missouri pinpointed her location at an address in Milan.

Ger told officers that the child victim had been his “girlfriend” for five or six months, but that age was not an issue in his country. (Ger is a refugee whose family fled from Myanmar when he was 11 years old and arrived in the United States in 2011. According to court documents, Myanmar appears to criminally penalize sexual intercourse with a female under 14 years of age.) Ger said he would not allow her to leave the residence without him, or talk to the other adult males there because it made him jealous. Ger would feed her, and she would not eat unless fed by him. Ger’s cell phone contained video recordings of sexual acts between them, which were filmed the day before his arrest.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick D. Daly. It was investigated by the FBI, the Missouri State Highway Patrol, the Sullivan County, Mo., Sheriff’s Department, and the Omaha, Neb., Police Department.

Project Safe Childhood

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc . For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab "resources."