Michael Robert DoanA Tennessee man charged in a Murray County, Ga., underage sex investigation netted a 20-year sentence in Superior Court stemming from a three-count conviction in a June jury trial.
Former Ooltewah resident Michael Robert Doan, 54, was sentenced Wednesday on charges of criminal attempt to commit aggravated child molestation, criminal attempt to commit child molestation and computer and electronic child exploitation.
The concurrent sentence on the three counts amounts to seven years to serve in prison with the remaining 13 years to be served on probation, according to court officials.
Officials said the judge, Cindy Morris, should sign the sentencing order sometime next week.
Doan's lawyer, Chattanooga attorney Dan Ripper, could not be reached for comment on the sentence.
Doan and Sunil Shamji Jungawalla, 49, of Snellville, Ga., were convicted in separate jury trials in June stemming from an investigation by the Murray County Sheriff's Office and the Northwest Georgia Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Jungawalla, who also faced the same charges in a related investigation, was sentenced in July to serve three years in prison and the remaining 17 years on probation, Superior Court records show.
Doan spent two days conversing with Murray County Sheriff's Office Detective Brett Morrison, who was posing as the stepfather of two underage girls, according to a release from Conasauga Circuit District Attorney Bert Poston's office on the trials published in the Daily Citizen.
Doan went to Murray County in January 2012 to meet the "girls" and had purchased and taken an erectile dysfunction medication shortly before the meeting at which he was arrested. Doan told investigators he intended to have sex with the underage girls.
Jungawalla had come to Murray County in July 2011 for the same purpose as Doan with Morrison posing as the uncle of an underage girl, according to the district attorney's release. Jungawalla brought alcohol for his intended victim to an arranged meeting where he was arrested. Prosecutors said that Jungawalla is not a U.S. citizen and likely will be deported to India when he completes the sentence handed down in July.
The cases took longer than usual to get to trial because Morrison, the primary witness in Doan's trial and the only witness in Jungawalla's, was serving in Afghanistan between September 2012 and September 2013, putting the detective behind in his caseload, district attorney's office officials said.
Contact staff writer Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or twitter.com/BenBenton or www.facebook.com/ben.benton1 or 423-757-6569.