Man Pleads Guilty in Kidnap, Rape Children Plot
By Bruce Schultz, Acadiana Bureau
Originally published in The Advocate (Baton Rouge), July 12, 2001
LAFAYETTE — A Lake Charles man agreed Wednesday to plead guilty and serve 15 years in prison for trying to get a California man to travel to Louisiana to kidnap and rape three girls and kill their mother.
David Daniel Settlemyer, 35, pleaded guilty to attempting to persuade an individual to travel to another state to have sex with a minor and to sending child pornography via computer.
He agreed to a 10-year sentence for the first offense and a 15-year sentence for the second charge to run concurrently, or at the same time.
Ordinarily, criminal defendants in federal court are sentenced according to federal sentencing guidelines.
"This is a little unusual," remarked U.S. District Judge Richard Haik. "I don't normally do that, but I am going to do it in this case."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Luke Walker said the guidelines for Settlemyer only required a sentence less than five years.
"That wasn't acceptable to me," Walker said.
Settlemyer also faces a life sentence in state District Court as a habitual offender, with prior convictions of kidnapping and attempted kidnapping.
In addition, the federal plea agreement says he will plead guilty to solicitation for murder in Calcasieu Parish, which carries a sentence of 50 years.
The state and federal sentences must be served consecutively, or one after the other, according to the plea agreement.
According to an outline of the case, Settlemyer, only weeks after being released from his sentence for kidnapping and attempted kidnapping, accessed the Internet on a Calcasieu Parish library computer. While on-line, he tried to get child pornography and snuff films, which depict women being killed during sex, the case's description says.
Settlemyer communicated with an individual from Pennsylvania who turned out to be an undercover FBI agent.
"The defendant almost immediately began discussing whether the agent would be willing to come to Louisiana" to kidnap and rape the three girls, according to the description filed in the court record.
Settlemyer explained to the FBI agent he needed someone to abduct the girls because their mother, aware of Settlemyer's sexual predisposition, forbids him to have any contact with her daughters, according to the court record.
Settlemyer told the agent that the girls' mother would have to be killed.
"The defendant informed that undercover agent that if this was a problem, he had others he had spoken to who could carry through with this plot," the description says.
Settlemyer also sent 60 images of hard-core child pornography by computer to a California company to make prints, according to the case outline.
In addition to communicating with the undercover FBI agent, Settlemyer made contact with a California man.
Chance Rearden, 50, of Santa Monica, is charged in the case with conspiring to travel to another state to have sex with juveniles, enticing a person to travel in interstate commerce in order to commit aggravated sexual abuse of minors and sending child pornography through interstate commerce.
Rearden claims his communications with Settlemyer were pure fantasy.
The government alleges that Settlemyer sent a map to Rearden of the victims' home that also detailed the location of their bedrooms.
Rearden tried to persuade Settlemyer to go to California to hunt, kidnap, rape and kill children, the indictment against Rearden says.
Authorities have said Rearden is an admitted neo-Nazi, satanist and white supremacist.
Rearden is trying to convince U.S. District Judge Tucker Melancon that the trial should be moved to California. Rearden's attorney, Pat Brown of Lafayette, has argued that Rearden's homosexuality would make it difficult to get a fair trial in the predominantly Catholic area of Lafayette.
Both Rearden and Settlemyer are being held without bond. No trial date has been set for Rearden's case.
Haik said he is satisfied that Settlemyer knows what he's getting into by making the plea agreement. Haik said the defendant often represented himself on various motions, even getting favorable rulings on some issues.
Just days before the guilty plea, Settlemyer rehired his appointed attorney, Wayne Blanchard, who represented him Wednesday.
"I've had few defendants who have understood the system any better than Mr. Settlemyer," the judge said in court.
