Former Verona man convicted of child trafficking

Seth Jovaag Group reporter A man who offered to buy an 8-year-old girl for sex while living in Verona in 2010 made state legal history last week when he was found guilty of child trafficking. Paul M. Ketring, 40, pleaded no contest last Wednesday in Dane County Circuit Court to a felony charge of trafficking a child and could face up to 40 years in prison and fines of up to $100,000. Ketring, who lived in an apartment on Kimball Lane at the time of his arrest in July 2010, is serving a seven-and-a-half-year sentence in federal prison in Minnesota for a separate charge of possession of child pornography. His sentencing for the trafficking charge has not been scheduled. Marianna Smirnova, a former human trafficking policy specialist at the Madison-based Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault, said Monday that Ketring’s conviction is a first in Wisconsin since a 2008 state law against human trafficking took effect. Before now, child trafficking cases have been prosecuted in federal court, she said. Since 2006, eight people in Wisconsin have been convicted in four federal cases for labor, sex or child sex trafficking, according to an article published in August by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. Ketring was arrested in July 2010 after a Madison woman told police that he offered her $50 to bring him an 8-year-old girl for sex, according to a criminal complaint. The next day, police listened in as the woman called Ketring, who allegedly asked the woman to bring the girl to a McDonald’s on Madison’s east side. Police searched his apartment five days later and found photos of both “young” and “mature” girls in “provocative positions,” along with weapons, marijuana and binoculars, according to an inventory filed with the search warrant. On four computer hard drives, a detective also found more than 270,000 still images and 3,000 videos, “many of which ... depict apparent child pornography or erotica,” according to the complaint. Ketring pleaded guilty to the pornography charges last November. In a sentencing memo presented to U.S. Circuit Court Judge William Conley, Ketring’s attorneys said he had expressed remorse and a desire to receive counseling and drug treatment while incarcerated. The memo also asserts that law enforcement officials never found any evidence to dispute Ketring’s claim that he never had sex with children. Ketring’s Verona apartment was just down the road from Glacier Edge Elementary School and a child care center. But it appears he had not lived in Verona long, as Madison police records showed he lived on Hawks Ridge Drive just north of the Town of Verona as recently as November 2009 before his arrest. Local police and school officials also said they’d had no prior contact with him. Online court records show that Ketring is currently incarcerated in a Minnesota federal prison and waived his court appearance last Wednesday before his attorney entered his plea. Smirnova said she hopes Ketring’s conviction will help establish legal precedent for prosecuting child trafficking cases and bring awareness to the issue statewide. “I think in general that (human trafficking) is very under-reported, under-investigated and under-prosecuted,” she said. “I think the Ketring case is a sign we are making strides in a more positive direction. “It shows how key it is to educate both arresting officers, detectives and prosecutors… This can be a really useful (prosecutorial) tool to utilize.” Related Stories: • Verona man sentenced for child porn possession • Alleged child trafficker pleads guilty to porn • Porn charges for alleged child trafficker