Carbondale man pleads guilty to attempted sex with a 7-year-old girl

A Carbondale man faces a minimum of 10 years in federal prison without parole and a maximum of life after pleading guilty Wednesday to attempting to have sex with a 7-year-old girl, according to a news release.

Ryan Mausner, 42, pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of online enticement of a minor in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Missouri.

“By pleading guilty today, Mausner admitted that from Jan. 31 to May 25, 2018 he induced, enticed and coerced a child victim to engage in criminal sexual activity,” according to a news release from Don Ledford, spokesman for the Western District of Missouri.

“Mauser was actually communicating (via the Kik messaging application and texts) with an undercover FBI agent, who portrayed a single mother with a 7-year-old daughter.”

In court Wednesday, Mausner admitted discussing having sex with the undercover agent and her fictional daughter.

“These discussions entailed descriptions of the 7-year-old girl and an insistence, on Mausner’s part, that the mother and 7-year-old would call him ‘Sir,’” the release states. “Mausner described in explicit detail the sorts of sexual activity that he intended to perform on the 7-year-old when they met.”

Mausner, a former Aspen-area event planner, flew from Denver to Kansas City on May 25 and was arrested by FBI agents when his plane landed. He’s been held in federal custody ever since.

A sentencing hearing has not yet been scheduled for Mausner because the federal probation office must do a presentence investigation first, according to the release. He faces a minimum sentence of 10 years behind bars without parole and a maximum of life without parole.