A former Florida Keys Mosquito Control District employee charged with trying to go to Mexico to have sex with young boys asked an Arizona judge last Friday to dismiss the case, claiming federal agents entrapped him.

Charles A. Soderman Jr., 30, a former Mosquito Control District information technology assistant who lives in Marathon, claims that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents "induced" him to commit the alleged crime by aggressively selling him on the idea of traveling to Mexico to sleep with boys as young as 5, according to court documents filed Friday.

In his motion for dismissal, Assistant Public Defender Jeffrey Williams argued that Soderman was not predisposed to acting on his attraction to boys via a trip to Mexico until he began chatting with ICE agents online beginning in March 2008.

Soderman, who was fired by the district shortly after his arrest in March 2009, is charged with traveling with intent to engage in sex with a juvenile.

He was arrested at the Arizona/Mexico border by ICE agents who allegedly found condoms, children's toys and lubricant in his luggage. An undercover ICE agent had been talking with Soderman online, posing as a client for a child-sex tourism business in Mexico, court records state. The agent reportedly explained to Soderman how he could book a trip with the firm.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sheila Phillips, who is prosecuting the case, could not be reached for comment Thursday -- a voice mail said she would be out of the office until Wednesday.

Phillips filed a motion earlier this month arguing that Soderman's alleged confessions to the undercover ICE agent online about previous sexual contact with young boys show that he was predisposed. Soderman allegedly admitted to the undercover agent that he had engaged in oral sex multiple times. In one "chat" with the undercover agent, Soderman "indicated that ... his age preference was 6 to 14 years of age," court documents state.

In her motion, Phillips indicates that Soderman initiated contact with agents about a trip to Mexico multiple times. Soderman's attorney Williams said that assertion is debatable, citing incomplete ICE records of online conversations.

"There is no evidence that Soderman was predisposed," Williams wrote in a motion to dismiss charges. "It is undisputed that he is attracted to young boys. However there is no evidence that he acted upon those feelings."

As of Thursday, the court had not ruled on the motion.

Soderman, whose trial is scheduled for Sept. 1, is being detained in a privately run federal jail near Yuma, Ariz.

alinhardt@keysnews.com