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Registered Utah sex offender faces new criminal charge

FARMINGTON — A man already on the Utah Sex Offender Registry for convictions in two cases now faces new criminal charges.

Skyler Ray Pettingill, 30, whose hometown is listed now in court documents as Evansville, Indiana, was charged Tuesday in Davis County's 2nd District Court with enticing a minor, a second-degree felony.

On Dec. 13, Pettingill chatted online with an undercover federal agent who was posing as a 13-year-old boy, according to charging documents. Police say they arrested Pettingill after he arrived at a designated location in Farmington where he thought he was going to engage in sex acts with the boy. Investigators also found a second man in the car with him who is also on the sex offender registry, the charges state. That man is not named in court documents.

In 2013, Pettingill was convicted of lewdness involving a child and sentenced to up to five years in prison. During that time, Pettingill wrote a letter to the judge in his case, stating he was "ashamed" of what he had done and asked for the opportunity to get treatment in a halfway house.

"I will do anything and everything to become a better man," he wrote. "My lack of character has put me where I'm at now. I never wish to come to this point ever again, your honor."

In 2008, Pettingill was convicted of an amended charge of attempted sex abuse of a child and was sentenced to up to five years at the Utah State Prison.