A 30-year-old Michigan man has been indicted by a federal grand jury on a charge of traveling with intent to engage in a sexual act with a minor after allegedly driving to Mount Vernon to take a 14-year-old girl with him to Michigan.
According to a Wednesday news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington, if convicted Keith Daniel Freerksen faces up to 30 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Freerksen was arrested Jan. 31 in South Haven Township, Michigan, after being found with the Mount Vernon girl.
The girl was reported missing Jan. 5.
According to a Feb. 1 news release from the Mount Vernon Police Department, the girl was tracked to Michigan after police learned she may have used a ride share service when she left her home in the 2200 block of North 20th Place.
Police found the ride share service she used and identified Freerksen as the man who booked the ride.
Mount Vernon police then worked with the Van Buren County Sheriff’s Office to further investigate. Sheriff’s investigators then went Freerksen’s home and found the girl unharmed.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, law enforcement has been able to use information on Freerksen’s registered vehicle to trace his movement across the northern tier of United States using license plate readers.
They traced him driving from Michigan to Washington before the teen went missing, and from Washington to Michigan in the days after she went missing.
Freerksen is being held at the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac.
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