British Sex Offender Charged After Coming To NJ For Child Sex: Attorney

Editor's note: This article contains details some people may find disturbing.

BERGEN COUNTY, NJ — A sex offender from England was arrested after traveling to New Jersey to have sex with two girls under 13 and paying undercover agents $1,200, officials said.

Stephen Hudson, 51, faces one count of attempted online enticement of a minor and one count of travel with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, according to U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger.

Hudson, a British citizen, lives in West London, Sellinger said. He is a registered sex offender in England and submitted a travel notification to authorities, records show.

An undercover law enforcement officer got an email from a user named "funukchat111" in April, according to a criminal complaint. The user, later identified as Hudson, said he wanted a "high n horny session with like minded adults" and expressed interest in an eight-year-old girl, according to the criminal complaint.

He told the agent he would be in Massachusetts in early May, records show. Another officer started emailing Hudson at the first officer's request, according to records.

Flight records show Hudson arrived in Boston on April 22, according to law enforcement. He continued expressing interest in meeting up in New Jersey to have sex with underage girls and said he wanted them to be "under the influence of controlled substances," records show.

Hudson also sent the second undercover agent a link to a file-sharing site that had "visual depictions of child sexual abuse," records show.

Hudson agreed to pay money in exchange for drugs (including cocaine); the ability to give those drugs and/or alcohol to two underage girls; and "access" to the girls, both of whom were under 13, so he could engage sexually with them, records show.

Hudson agreed to meet the first officer and his "girlfriend" (a third agent) in Woodcliff Lake and did so on May 6, the criminal complaint shows. After Hudson handed the officers a plastic bag with the money, they arrested him, Sellinger said.

The officers found condoms, erectile dysfunction pills, two bottles of wine, and a vibrator in a book bag Hudson was carrying, records show.

If convicted, Hudson could be imprisoned for life. The maximum penalty for attempted online enticement of a minor is life in prison, with a minimum sentence of 10 years. For the charge of interstate travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, the maximum sentence is 30 years in prison, according to Sellinger's office.

He appeared before a Newark federal judge via videoconference on Tuesday, Sellinger said.