Local
St. Louis County Man Gets Prison For On-Line Chats
By Bob Hudson
Feb 6, 2010 - 6:05:34 AM

A St. Louis County man was sent to prison for on-line chatting. 29-year-old Dustin W. Buescher, of the 1900 block of Via Veneto Drive in St. Louis County, was sentenced to three years in prison for the e-mails he sent this summer to what he thought was a 13-year-old girl, but who was actually a St. Charles County Sheriff’s investigator. Buescher pleaded guilty in December on four counts of attempted use of a child in a sexual performance.

At a sentencing hearing on Friday, assistant prosecutor Philip Groenweghe asked Circuit Judge Ted House for concurrent terms of four years in prison on each count. Buescher’s attorney, Andrew Hale, said his client already has already served 10 months in jail, meaning he was unlikely to serve more than a few more months in prison even with a four-year sentence. He said probation would be a better option because it would give the state the chance to monitor Buescher for five years. He added that this crime cost Buescher his wife, his job and his house. Judge House sentenced Buescher to concurrent terms of three years in prison on each count.