Man jailed in underage sex sting

A 46-year-old South Lake Tahoe man was ordered Tuesday to spend 60 days in jail as a condition of his probation for soliciting a minor for sex and felony attempted child abuse.

Brit Oern Hall received two years probation on a 2-5-year prison sentence after he was arrested in a sex sting conducted July 7-8, 2022, at Stateline.

He also received a suspended 19-48 month sentence and was ordered to pay a $5,000 fine.

“I’m extremely embarrassed and you will never see me again,” he said. “I understand that what I did was wrong.”

Under a plea agreement, prosecutors agreed to recommend that the two felony sentences would run at the same time. The guilty plea was designed so Hall would not have to register as a sex offender.

Defense attorney Maria Pence said Hall’s painting business was affected by the arrest and that he lost clients. A psycho-sexual evaluation found Hall was at a low-risk to reoffend.

Both District Judge Tod Young and prosecutor Jim Sibley pointed out there were more than 1,300 sexually related messages on Hall’s phone. The ones that got him in trouble were a series of text messages with undercover agents in Stateline conducting the operation.

He texted with someone he thought was a 19-year-old on a web site, who revealed in a subsequent text she was 16.

Young said that’s when Hall started asking for pictures of the girl and arranged a meeting at a Stateline hotel room. He and eight other men were arrested in the sting conducted by Douglas County Sheriff’s investigators, the Reno Police Department’s Human Exploitation and Trafficking team and the FBI.

“Sixteen-year-old girls and boys are trafficked daily across this country,” Young said, saying that’s why law enforcement conducts the stings.

Pence said Hall decided against waiting to find out if a similar case being appealed in federal court will win an appeal.

As part of his probation, Hall is not permitted to possess any form of pornography and must complete 200 hours of community service not related to anything involving children.