PITTSBURGH (AP) — A former American Airlines operations manager who learned of the first Sept. 11 hijacking before the jet struck the World Trade Center is set to plead guilty to a federal interstate child-sex charge in Pittsburgh.
Defense attorney Frank Walker confirmed 55-year-old Ray Howland will plead guilty Wednesday afternoon.
Howland was arrested near Pittsburgh International Airport last June by an undercover state attorney general’s agent who posed as a woman with a 10-year-old daughter. Howland, of Arlington, Texas, used an iPad and cellphone to send explicit messages after posting online that he was “looking for a family or a couple of girls” for sex while in town on business.
Walker says the plea deal includes an agreed-upon 10-year prison sentence. He says Howland has undergone counseling and has his family’s support.
Howland was mentioned in the 9/11 Commission report, having known about the hijacking moments before the plane slammed into the World Trade Center.
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