A routine traffic stop led to the arrest of an FBI Most Wanted fugitive who has now pleaded guilty to child sex trafficking involving a teenage girl.
Donald Eugene Fields II, 61, pleaded guilty Thursday, April 9, to one count of child sex trafficking, according to a release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri.
Fields admitted that he accepted items of value — including cash, a car, a motorcycle, Christmas presents and vacations — in exchange for providing a friend and co-defendant access to the minor, beginning when she was 14 years old, the release states.
From the winter of 2013 through the summer of 2016, per the release, co-defendant Theodore “Ted” John Sartori Sr. engaged in illegal sexual activity with the girl while providing Fields with money and other benefits.
Prosecutors said Sartori also financed a trip to Florida in 2016 and drove the minor there with the intention of engaging in sexual activity with her. Fields instructed the girl to participate in the abuse, the release states.
Fields was originally indicted in December 2022 on child sex trafficking charges and later became one of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted fugitives after he failed to show up to court.
He was arrested in January 2025 after a traffic stop in Lady Lake, Fla., when officers discovered he was on the list, according to federal prosecutors and a prior FBI release.
Fields is scheduled to be sentenced on July 15. The charge carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life.
Sartori, 65, previously pleaded guilty to one count of travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct and is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence, according to prosecutors.
The case was investigated by the FBI and the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, with assistance from the Missouri State Highway Patrol and the Missouri State Technical Assistance Team. Assistant U.S. Attorney Dianna Edwards is prosecuting the case.
Source: PEOPLE
