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Sex charges dismissed; appeal filed Ashland man was accused of Net-based assignation By Chris Bristol Federal prosecutors in Kansas want felony charges reinstated against an Ashland man who was accused of flying to Wichita to have sex with a 16-year-old girl he met on the Internet. U.S. District Judge Wesley E. Brown last month gutted the government's case against 42-year-old Keith Defrehn Kelly, dismissing the two most serious charges in the case. The ruling effectively forbids prosecutors from refiling the charges without permission from the court. On Friday, U.S. Attorney Jackie Williams asked the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the ruling. "We have filed an appeal," a spokeswoman for Williams said. "At this point, we will just have to wait to see what happens." Kelly, a disabled veteran, had been in custody in Wichita since his arrest in July at the Wichita airport, where he was met by FBI agents moments after he got off the plane. Prosecutors later indicted him on four charges, including felony counts of coercion or enticement of a minor and "traveling in interstate commerce" to engage in sexual activity with a juvenile. He faced up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Brown dismissed both charges March 2. At the government's request, he temporarily dismissed two lesser obstruction charges March 20. Kelly met the girl when she placed an ad on the HotMail Web site for a pen pal last spring. She lives in Oxford, Kan., a town of 1,100 near Wichita. She was only 15 at the time -- which she admitted to Kelly a week after they began corresponding, FBI agents said. "Admire me (?!!) Why? I am about to strip you of your virginity," Kelly wrote in one e-mail, according to an FBI affidavit. "I am condoning your lying to a your parents, and conspiring to deceive them. ... In fact, I am about to become the paediphile (sic) they would accuse me of being." Eventually they made plans to meet. The girl's parents found the correspondence and took it to the police. Authorities said Kelly was cooperative when arrested. In his luggage he carried condoms, alcohol, Magic Shell (an ice cream condiment which he had referred to in a sexual context in his e-mails) and women's undergarments for the girl. The legal reasoning for the judge's ruling remains unknown. A spokeswoman for Williams said she didn't know, and the federal public defender who represented Kelly did not return a phone call seeking comment. A clerk at the U.S. District Court in Wichita said the judge's decision apparently revolved around the girl's age and whether federal statutes applied to juveniles under the age of 18 or 16. Kelly was released on $1,000 cash bond pending appeal. He was ordered to return to Oregon and get a job, and forbidden to have contact with the girl, her family or any juveniles under the age of 18. In 1997, when Kelly owned the Carriage Company in the Ashland Plaza, Kelly was convicted of two felonies and a misdemeanor involving sexual misconduct with underage girls. Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA