Texas trucker accused of offering free trips and sexually assaulting boy is convicted

The handwritten flyer posted in the El Paso, Texas, area made an unusual offer.

“Parents and boys,” it said. “If your kids want something to do at school breaks, I am a truck driver. If your kids want to see different places, I’m willing to let them go with me. My trucks have GPS tracking so you know where we are at all times.”

The truck driver offered to pay $100 a week.

“Teaches them responsibility,” the flyer said. “Kids are well guarded. This keep(s) me from being so bored.”

Federal prosecutors say Travis Wayne Vavra, 59, posted the flyer the same day he was arrested in December 2019.

Vavra was already under investigation when the flyer surfaced.

Several weeks earlier, a 14-year-old boy reported “he had been forced to engage in a long-running series of sexual activity” with Vavra over the past five years across the U.S., according to an FBI agent’s probable cause statement. The boy said he was 9 years old when he started taking the cross-country road trips.

The FBI also interviewed someone identified only as “Person #1” in the probable cause statement.

The person found a flyer in 2015, posted at a gas station in a small town outside of El Paso, advertising free season passes to a local waterpark, and they met with Vavra to get them for the boy and his younger sister, according to the probable cause statement.

“Vavra gave Person #1 the advertised waterpark passes and also provided to Person #1 a business card stating that Vavra was a truck driver that was able to take children on vacations to explore the United States,” the probable cause statement said.

For the next five years, Person #1 and the boy communicated with Vavra by cell phone, authorities say.

During an interview with FBI agents, Vavra denied engaging in sex acts with the boy but admitted he had taken him along on “numerous overnight interstate trips” since 2015, the probable cause statement said.

When he was arrested, Vavra’s phone contained child sexual abuse material, prosecutors say.

He was also accused of molested two other victims, prosecutors say.

A federal jury convicted Vavra of transporting a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and of possession of child pornography, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas said Tuesday.

He faces a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison but could be sentenced to life on the transportation of a minor charge. He could also be sentenced up to 20 years in prison on the child pornography charge.

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