AURORA, Colo. — A man arrested in Utah in connection with an Amber Alert related to the disappearance of an Aurora girl in November 2021 was sentenced Monday to more than a decade behind bars.
Navarro Cathey pleaded guilty to two counts of felony sexual exploitation of a child in October of last year. The other charges against him were dismissed as part of the plea agreement, according to court records.
He was sentenced Monday to 12 years in the Department of Corrections and 13 years for the second count, court records show. The sentences will be served consecutively for a total of 25 years.
The girl was reported missing on Nov. 23, 2021, from her home by her mother, Aurora Police said.
A week before, on November 16, the girl's mother confronted her about a package she received that contained a cellphone, an affidavit supporting Cathey's arrest says. That resulted in a fight between them and her mother eventually contacted police, the affidavit says.
The mother reported to police that her daughter had received a cellphone from an "unknown person" whom she had been talking to over the internet, the affidavit says.
When she reported her daughter missing on Nov. 23, the girl's mother provided detectives with a string of emails between her daughter and the suspect, who identified himself as Nathaniel McKinley in the emails and said he was 28.
According to the affidavit, the conversations "quickly" became sexual in nature, and the man arranged to meet the girl, who said in the email exchanges that she was 13.
Investigators reached out to Amazon about the package that was sent to the girl and determined which account purchased the phone, the affidavit says. That led them to Cathey, whose middle name is Nathaniel.
The next day, Aurora Police were notified by the Utah Highway Patrol (UHP) that they had stopped the vehicle and that Cathey was in custody. UHP said the girl was safe and had been found under some blankets in the back seat of the car, the affidavit says.
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