A 30-year-old Rathdrum man who fell for a sting operation by the Boundary County Sheriff’s Office last summer will spend three to four years in prison and pay a $1,000 fine and $2,395.50 costs after being sentenced by Judge Susie Jensen on a charge of enticing children through the internet, video image or communication device to lure a child under 16.
He could have been sentenced to a maximum of 15 years.
According to court documents, a Boundary County sheriff’s detective, using the online dating app BADOO and a confidential informant (CI) set up the sting at about 3 p.m. June 5, 2025.
Posing as a 14-year-old girl, the CI was soon in a conversation with Jacob William Johnson, who complimented her on her youthful looks and asked her if she wanted to hang out, even though she told him she was underage.
He even made sure, asking her if she was really under the age of 18. She assured him she was. Being the chivalrous sort, Johnson told her it wasn’t wise to meet up with a stranger from the internet.
“What if I was a rapist?” he asked. “What if I was a kidnapper?”
She replied she was new in the state, that she bored.
HIs concerns for her safety and welfare thus assuaged, Johnson asked if she was “just looking for hookups,” if it “was her plan to get in the car and fool around?”
Saying she’d never really done anything, she asked Johnson what they would do.
Wary again, he started asking for her to send him photos to prove he wasn’t being “catfished,” or deceived by someone using an assumed persona. He asked her if she’d had sex before, she said “no.” He told her he wasn’t a “pedo,” that he was familiar with “sting ops.”
He told her he would meet her that evening at a Bonners Ferry gas station, telling her he’d not met an underage girl before. He then asked her for explicit photos of herself. He asked if she’d bring a condom, unless she “liked it bare.” He asked if she was on birth control.
He told her it was a big leap of faith for him to trust her and know he wouldn’t be in jail afterward.
Fortunately, he wasn’t.
At about 7:30 p.m. a blue Ford F150 pickup into the station parking lot. Johnson, the father of three with one on the way, didn’t get quite the reception he expected as he was whisked to jail having never laid eyes on the young paramour of his dreams.