An Oregon man could be in prison until his 90s for sexually abusing an Edmonton teenager and abducting her to a suburb of Portland, Ore., more than 1,500 kilometres away from her home.
Noah Madrano, 43, pleaded guilty in January to two of the six U.S. federal charges he faced after his arrest in July 2022.
Police found him in an Oregon hotel room with a 13-year-old girl who’d been missing from Edmonton for more than a week.
On Tuesday, Senior U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman handed down a sentence of 50 years for the crimes. Assistant U.S. Attorney Mira Chernick had asked for the maximum possible sentence of life in prison, which Mosman didn’t grant.
But Madrano could still end up spending the remainder of his life behind bars.
Madrano admitted that he was in contact with the Edmonton girl online for about a year before he travelled to Canada twice in 2022 and sexually abused her in person, filming some of the abuse.
The second time Madrano was in Edmonton, he took her from outside her junior high school and kept her in a local hotel room for a few days before he crossed the U.S.-Canada border with the girl in the trunk of his car.
Family members of the girl, who CBC News is not naming to protect her identity as a victim of sexual assault, read victim impact statements at Tuesday’s hearing in the U.S. District Court.
The girl herself gave her own statement, and read poetry she’d written about what she’s been through.
Madrano admitted to the charges of sexual exploitation of a child and transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.
Mosman sentenced him to the maximum of 30 years on the first charge, which runs concurrently to the 50-year sentence he imposed on the second charge.
Both charges are felonies, and the maximum allowable sentence on the transportation charge is life in prison.
Madrano additionally faces U.S. state charges, but that could change based on the outcome of the federal case.
The Edmonton Police Service had previously said in a statement that Madrano wasn’t charged in Canada, because his case was dealt with by U.S. authorities.
The investigation involved multiple police agencies, with EPS working with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, Gladstone Police (Oregon), Oregon City Police and the FBI.
