Morris County Sex Offender Gets 4 Years in Prison For Showing Genitals to Undercover Cop

A Morristown man and member of the United States Merchant Marines was sentenced to four years in prison Friday for showing his genitals to an undercover police officer during an online chat in 2010, Acting Attorney General John Hoffman announced.

Thomas Phillips, 34, was found guilty in June 2014 on charges of attempting to endanger the welfare of a child and attempting to transmit obscene materials to a person under the age of 18.

In addition to his four years in prison, Phillips will be under parole supervision for life.

During the online chat session in 2010, Phillips, lying naked on a bed, showed his genitals three times to a girl he believed to be 13-years-old. That girl was actually an undercover police officer from Burlington County. The chat session lasted 17 minutes, and Phillips apologized at the end of the conversation, saying in a message that he knew it was illegal because the girl was “too young,” Hoffman said.

Phillips was already a registered sex offender after being found guilty for a similar incident in 2006 where he was caught in a large online law enforcement sting. That conviction led to three years probation for a charge of attempted criminal sexual contact for instructing an undercover police detective who was posing as an underage girl to touch herself sexually, Hoffman said.

“Phillips is every parent’s worst nightmare when it comes to protecting children online: a sexual predator who stalks innocent children using the anonymity of the Internet,” said Hoffman in a statement. “We have put him in prison where he belongs.”

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