BEATRICE – A Missouri man has been ordered to serve a Nebraska Prison term for attempted first-degree sexual assault…after he used an adult website to try to meet who he believed was an 18-year-old female.


56-year-old Samuel Howe, of Country Club Missouri…a village near St. Joseph…was given an 8-to-16-year state prison term Wednesday, by Gage County District Judge Rick Schreiner.


"You were in an adult website, contacting or discussing deviant behavior with who you thought was an 18-year-old, that shouldn't have been where she was, talking about what she was talking about. But instead of doing the right thing when you had some concerns and I think some red flags were present before you even got here, that she may not have been old enough. The fact that she was still in school...that she needed to run away...if she was an adult she wouldn't have been either of those things. You got here and it became apparent to you she was underage. In fact, she told you. You drove from St. Joseph, Missouri up here, to pick her up to help her run away from home."


The judge said Howe chose the wrong decisions “every time”.  "When it became apparent she was a child making a childish, poor decision...you could have contacted law enforcement...could have driven straight to the police department and said, hey, I've got a problem with this young lady and she needs help."


Schreiner noted law enforcement later contacted Howe posing as the young victim and talked Howe into coming to Omaha….where he showed up planning to have contact with the victim again. Court records indicated the victim of the crime was age 15 at the time of the offense.


"The community needs to know that if somebody comes up...and frankly, the world needs to know...that if somebody comes to Gage County and engages in this type of behavior with one of our children, there's going to be a heavy price to pay. There are just certain lines you don't cross."


Howe’s attorney, Lee Timan urged the court to consider probation…or something less than the maximum 20-year-prison term under the Class-Two felony involved. 

"This is a case where Mr. Howe legitimately believed that he was engaging with a person who was at least 18 years old, on an adult website...where you have to be 18...and swear that you're 18 in order to have a post. He interacted with this person. He believed they were consenting adults...and agreed upon a course of action. He followed through with that course of action. And, at some point after meeting her, he realized this is perhaps not what he thought it was. Did he still make some bad choices? Yes. But did he also decide to turn around and talk her into coming home? Yes. If he's a monster, he would not have turned the car around. He would not have dropped her off where she asked him to drop her off. So it's our position that Mr. Howe, while certainly putting himself in a position of deserving some kind of punishment....has not done anything to deserve basically a life sentence, at this point."


Timan said he had concerns with how the presentence investigation report interpreted the evaluation of Howe.  "It does appear to me that we get things that are kind of opinions that are thrown into a PSI that go beyond just what the numbers show...as if they're are trying to lean support one way or another regardless of the fact that the numbers didn't come out the way that would follow that opinion. So, I just have concerns about that. I think there are some statements that the probation office made in the PSI that kind of fall in that line."


As a part of a plea agreement, prosecutors sought dismissal of charges including 1st-degree sexual assault of a minor, sex trafficking of a minor and enticement by electronic means.


Howe was arrested in Missouri on a warrant and had a minimal past criminal history. As part of his prison sentence, Howe will be required to register under the Nebraska Sex Offender Registry Act and be subject to its terms for a 25-year-period.


The Gage County case against him stemmed from a Beatrice Police investigation of an incident in February of 2023.