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Man Gets 15 Years in Anime, Twilight Cross-Country Case

posted on by Egan Loo
41-year-old took 14-year-old girl on 6-week trip for anime con, Twilight locale

James Joseph Reimer, the man charged with soliciting from a 14-year-old girl and running away together from Oklahoma to the West Coast, pleaded guilty on Friday and received a 15-year prison sentence. The 41-year-old man was on trial for the felony charges of soliciting sexual conduct or communication with a minor by use of technology and maliciously enticing a child.

Reimer took Deborah Kalai Fourzan on a six-week trip from their hometown of Tecumseh, Oklahoma to Washington state. Fourzan's friends told authorities that that two were going to California for an anime convention. Fourzan's mother, Crystal VanBuskirk, told Oklahoma's KSBI-TV station that Reimer "found out something she was interested in and used that. It was the anime, the Japanese animation, and that's how he got to her, and I believe that wholeheartedly."

James Reimer told the Oklahoma television station KOCO-5, "[Fourzan] wanted to see Forks, from that movie Twilight. That's not my bag, though." Forks, Washington is the real-life setting of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight vampire novel series and the subsequent live-action film adaptations. Reimer also claimed to the television station that he did not know that people were looking for him during the whole trip.

The two were reported missing on February 2, and the search led to a profile on the America's Most Wanted television program in March. Reimer was arrested on March 14 after police stopped their car for routine traffic violations in Montesano in southwest Washington.

Source: Associated Press via The Seattle Times


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