Ex-Miami professor who sought sex with teen in Missouri sentenced

A former Miami University professor who arranged to have sex in Missouri with a 14-year-old girl has been sentenced to two years and nine months in prison.

As part of the sentence, which was imposed Thursday in federal court in Kansas City, Kevin Armitage will be supervised for 10 years after his release.

Armitage, 53, resigned from the university shortly before being indicted last summer. According to court documents, he was a "senior" member of a website where people give accounts of their sexual encounters with prostitutes. In May 2018, he responded to a post by federal investigator monitoring the website about a young prostitute.

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On May 30, 2018, Armitage – who documents say made hundreds of posts under the name “CletusTheYokel” – met at a Kansas City restaurant with an undercover agent posing as the 14-year-old girl's cousin. He agreed on $100 for the encounter.

Armitage was arrested soon after, court documents say, with a condom in his pocket and a milkshake he’d ordered for the girl.

Federal prosecutors said in court documents that Armitage’s actions showed his willingness to exploit a vulnerable child for his own sexual gratification.

“The defendant understood he was communicating with an individual he believed was a 14-year-old runaway. The defendant never communicated concern for the purported 14-year-old’s well-being, never suggested that she should seek help from authorities or social service agencies, and never expressed any regrets that he would be engaging in commercial sex acts with a child,” prosecutors said in the documents. “During the course of the investigation the only concerns the defendant demonstrated were concerns for his own sexual gratification.”

Armitage had been a professor of individualized studies. He pleaded guilty in May to traveling across state lines to engage in illicit sexual conduct.

His wife filed for divorce last year, and it was finalized in April, Butler County court records show.

Documents filed on his behalf before the sentencing are sealed. His attorney could not immediately be reached for comment.