Milan Man Sentenced to 14 Years for Child Sexual Exploitation

A 24-year old man from Milan, MO was recently sentenced in federal court for transporting a 12-year-old victim across state lines for criminal sexual activity.

The U.S. Attorney's Office says 24-year old Eh Tah Ger was sentenced to 14 years and two months in federal prison without parole.

On January 23, 2019, Ger reportedly pleaded guilty to transporting a minor across state lines with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity. Ger admitted that he picked up a 12-year-old girl in Omaha, Nebraska, on January 7, 2018. Ger lived with the child victim in his vehicle and at a residence in Milan until Jan. 20, 2018, when he was arrested. During that time, Ger admitted to engaging in sexual intercourse with the child victim multiple times.

According to court documents, the child victim’s parents in Omaha reported her missing on Jan. 9, 2018. The parents told police their daughter had left their home the previous morning and had not yet returned. The mother also said her daughter had gone missing twice over the last month, and in both instances had been found with Ger. Ten days later the child victim was recovered after law enforcement agencies in Nebraska and Missouri pinpointed her location at an address in Milan.

Ger reportedly told officers that the child victim had been his “girlfriend” for five or six months, but that age was not an issue in his country. (Ger is a refugee whose family fled from Myanmar when he was 11-years old and arrived in the United States in 2011. According to court documents, Myanmar appears to criminally penalize sexual intercourse with a female under 14 years of age.)

Ger said he would not allow her to leave the residence without him, or talk to the other adult males there because it made him jealous. Ger would reportedly feed her, and she would not eat unless fed by him. His cell phone contained video recordings of sexual acts between them, which were filmed the day before his arrest.