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Helena man pleads not guilty to sex abuse of a child

Missoulian - 5/19/2021

A Helena man who was visiting Missoula in April pleaded not guilty last week to sending sexually suggestive messages to what he thought was a 12-year-old’s social media account.

Matthew H.D. Fehr, 44, was arraigned on May 10 in front of Missoula District Judge Jason Marks on two charges of sex abuse of a child.

Fehr was arrested on April 29 after allegedly sending sexually suggestive messages to the social media account of the fictitious 12-year-old girl, “Jane Doe,” created by law enforcement agents.

After several messages back and forth with the girl’s Instagram account, Fehr asked the girl to have dinner and watch Netflix with him, according to charging documents. The law enforcement agents sending the messages to Fehr made Doe’s age clear.

When law enforcement spoke with Fehr, he denied trying to bring Doe back to his hotel room but acknowledged he had made “sexual comments” when messaging Doe, court documents said.

A pretrial hearing was scheduled for June 10.