Calif. man snared in Pa. sex sting gets 27 years

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A California man is facing 27 years in prison after he was sentenced on charges that he traveled to western Pennsylvania intending to have sex with what he thought was a 14-year-old girl.

A federal judge in Pittsburgh delivered the sentence to Edward Hilts today.

U.S. District Judge Donetta Ambrose also sentenced the 69-year-old Hilts to lifetime probation.

Hilts, of Fallbrook, Calif., was arrested in October 2009 when he flew to Pittsburgh after corresponding with an Allegheny County detective posing as the girl.

A jury convicted Hilts in June.

Hilts had earlier agreed to plead guilty, but instead fled to Canada using an alias before he was arrested in Vancouver in 2011. Federal prosecutors say he tried to contact two other minors for sex while a fugitive.