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US registers Aussie woman as sex offender

Australian woman Rianne Gysberts has escaped jail time after she pleaded guilty in a Tennessee court to sending naked photos of herself to a US teenager.

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Source: AAP


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An Australian woman who sent explicit photographs of herself to a Tennessee girl has avoided a jail sentence in the US, but she will have to register as a sex offender.

Rianne Gysberts, 31, of Frankston, Victoria, entered a guilty plea in Tennessee's Madison County Circuit Court on Wednesday to one count of solicitation of a minor to observe sexual conduct.

Gysberts was arrested in a sting operation at a McDonald's restaurant in September after the 17-year-old girl's mother alerted authorities that the Melbourne woman had travelled to Tennessee to meet her daughter.

Gysberts had been communicating with the girl over the internet for about a month, including sending the teen naked photos of herself.

Investigators from Tennessee's Jackson Police Department said Gysberts wanted "to take this relationship as far as it could go".

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A judge sentenced Gysberts on Wednesday to two years of unsupervised probation and fined her $US500 ($A566).

Gysberts also had to forfeit her laptop computer, iPad and two mobile phones, and register with Jackson police as a sex offender.

Jackson investigators will inform Interpol of Gysberts' sex offender status.

Police will return Gysberts' passport and she will be free to fly back to Australia.


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