Sex Acts With 5-Year-Old Child In Hotel Earn Lengthy Prison Sentence

HUDSON VALLEY, NY — A man who preyed on a 5-year-old child will go to federal prison.

U.S. Attorney Carla B. Freedman and Craig L. Tremaroli, Special Agent in Charge of the Albany Field Office of the FBI announced on Wednesday that 54-year-old John Oathout, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was sentenced last Friday to 25 years in prison for transporting a minor to the Hudson Valley with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.

As part of his guilty plea, Oathout admitted that after a relationship ended with the victim’s mother, the victim’s mother allowed Oathout to take her daughter on overnight trips to New York and Virginia.

During the week of Thanksgiving 2021, Oathout picked up the 5-year-old child from her home in Delaware and took her to a hotel in Kingston, where he subjected the child to sexual contact.

In addition to being sentenced to 25 years in prison, Chief U.S. District Judge Brenda K. Sannes also imposed a 20-year term of supervised release, which Oathout will begin serving after he is released from prison, when he will also be required to register as a sex offender.

The FBI’s Albany Division Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force investigated this case. The task force includes members of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Carling Dunham prosecuted the case as part of Project Safe Childhood.

Launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice, Project Safe Childhood is led by U.S. Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS). Project Safe Childhood allocates federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. More information about Project Safe Childhood, can be found here.