Undercover agents catch man in NC who plotted to rape a child. He worked for a sheriff.
A once trusted Tennessee officer will spend nearly two decades in jail as a “dangerous predator” who traveled over state lines intending to rape a toddler in North Carolina, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Thursday.
John Allen Biggins, 42, was a corrections officer at the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office. He told undercover agents he wanted to engage in “illicit sexual acts with a minor female child,” according to a news release from Dena J. King, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina.
Biggins’ crime began in June 2022, when he first made contact with someone posing as a parent or guardian offering a child for sex on the dark web, court records say.
He was arrested less than a month later when he drove from Surgoinsville, Tennessee to Hendersonville, believing he was going to meet the toddler and her mother. He had pornographic photos and videos of children — along with police equipment, including a nine millimeter semi-automatic pistol — when police arrested him.
The federal complaint filed after Biggins was caught last year contains disturbing and graphic details about the messages Biggins had unwittingly exchanged with the agent.
In it, a detective describes a chain of messages where Biggins openly shares that he wants to sexually assault a 4-year-old girl. In the conversation, authorities say, he discussed previously molesting an 8-year-old girl for four years.
“Thankfully, Biggins’ plan to exploit a child was thwarted and he will be held accountable for his heinous crime,” said Ronnie Martinez, the Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in North Carolina and South Carolina.
Sullivan County Sheriff Jeff Cassidy fired Biggins immediately after his arrest, the attorney’s office said.
On February 27, Biggins pleaded guilty to traveling in interstate commerce to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor. Federal court records indicate he agreed to a plea deal — the details of which were under seal and not specified by officials in Thursday’s news release.
Biggins will now spend 17 years in prison followed by a lifetime of supervised release, U.S. District Judge Martin Reidinger ruled Thursday. He will also be a registered sex offender after he is released from federal prison.
