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Tampa man admits to coercing Missouri boy into sex, says he was trying to help

 
Stephen Farris Underwood, 46, of Tampa struck up a relationship with a Missouri boy.
Stephen Farris Underwood, 46, of Tampa struck up a relationship with a Missouri boy.
Published Aug. 5, 2015

TAMPA — The teen boy in Mountain View, Mo., had been bullied for being gay.

The Tampa man just wanted to help him out of a bad situation.

That's how Stephen Farris Underwood, 46, explains coercing a 15-year-old into leaving his family and accompanying Underwood to Florida in November for 10 days of sex that began after they met through Kik, a smartphone messaging app.

Underwood, described in a jail record as a computer technician, faces at least 10 years in federal prison under terms of a signed plea agreement filed Monday. He is expected to plead guilty today in U.S. District Court to a charge of transporting a minor for sex.

"The victim stated that Underwood had initiated the contact," the court paper states. "Underwood advised him, through Kik, that he wanted a boyfriend."

They started off talking about life and school. The teen told him of bullying and Underwood said he, too, was gay but said people in Tampa understood, more so than in rural Missouri.

The teen told Underwood he was 16, and the man lied, too, saying he was 31, the plea states. In truth, the man was three times as old as the boy.

They arranged to meet in a Walmart parking lot and took off on a 1,000 mile trek to Florida.

The boy's parents turned to police, who noted that he wasn't a chronic runaway.

Though mobile technology had left the teen vulnerable to exploitation, it also played a role in solving the case, leading Hillsborough County sheriff's investigators to Underwood's mobile home on Lakeshore Villa Drive in north Tampa.

Mountain View police had traced the Kik account and the boy's iPod, recently updated through iTunes, to an Internet address used by Underwood.

Contact Patty Ryan at pryan@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3382.