FRESNO, Calif. (HPD) — A pedophile advocate on trial for sexually harassing a 12-year-old girl in California has died in jail in Arizona, according to public records.
Nathan Larson was arrested in 2020 for raping the minor, whom he convinced to run away with him from his home in Fresco, California, according to authorities.
Larson died Sept. 18, and a dismissal order was filed Oct. 11, the Sacramento Bee reported Monday. The federal prosecutor’s office did not give further details of the case.
The Bee reported that Larson had been transferred from a federal prison in the Fresno area to a jail in Arizona, where he died. The cause of death had not yet been determined, according to the Maricopa County coroner’s office.
Larson, 41, last appeared in court in March, when he asked to represent himself in a federal case that could have earned him life in prison if convicted, according to the Bee.
He was arrested in December 2020 at Denver International Airport while trying to deliver the girl to his home in Catlett, Virginia, where he planned to rape and impregnate her on her 13th birthday, according to court documents.
Larson made the girl wear a black wig to appear older and told her to pretend to be mute during the trip, Fresno Police Chief Margaret Mims said.
Mims added that Larson was “a white supremacist and known advocate of pedophilia.”
Detectives said Larson met the girl on social media, flew to California and convinced her to sneak out of his house. A Denver police officer stopped them when the flight made a stopover in Colorado. The girl was not injured and she was reunited with her parents later.