Ten months after the local education community was rocked to its core when news broke of former Windsor board of education member Christopher Watts being charged with attempting to entice a 14-year-old girl to engage in sexual activity via the internet, a Florida judge sentenced the husband, father and Windsor resident to spend the next decade in prison, according to William Daniels of the United States Attorney's Office.
Watts time spent in prison will be followed by 20 years of supervised released, Daniels said Thursday afternoon.
Watts was sentenced Thursday in an Orlando court room just over four months after pleading guilty to the criminal sex charges.
Watts, who operated a Windsor-based public relations firm after years serving as an editor for the Associated Press and a press secretary for the Connecticut House Democrats, moved to Windsor in 1997 and was entrenched in local life.
In addition to serving on the Board of Education, he served as chair of the Windsor Historic District Commission, the Assisant Director for the Vintage Radio and Communications Museum of Connecticut and was an ex-officio member of the Windsor Education Foundation, which raises money for technology and education programs in the town's public schools.
According to court documents, Watts negotiated a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl with an undercover agent operating under the guise of the girl's father.
Court documents say Watts engaged in the negotation on the website Motherless.com. He responded to a post titled, "dad has daughter" in a chat room labeled "incest" and "jailbait," court documents detail.
Watts flew to Florida to purchase a truck and meet the young girl. He was followed by federal agents on his trip, according to court documents.
On March 29, Watts was .
He was not given the opportunity to post bail.
The 10-prison sentence Watts received is the minimum sentence for the charges he faced.
