A convicted child molester has been sentenced to serve 35 years in prison on federal charges of sexual enticement of a minor and engaging in a murder-for-hire plot.
Chandler Cardente, 31, pleaded guilty to the charges in March.
He was accused of having sex with a 12-year-old girl he met on Snapchat, after picking her up after school in Burrillville in December 2021.
After his arrest on those charges, Cardente tried to have the victim killed. While at the Adult Correctional Institutions, he called someone he believed to be a hit man, offering $200 cash and $1,500 worth of tattoo equipment. That person turned out to be an undercover officer.
In May, Cardente pleaded no contest to state charges of first-degree child molestation in the case and was sentenced to 35 years in state prison, with 25 years suspended.
The two sides in the federal case agreed on the length of the sentence, 420 months in prison, retroactive to December 2021 when he was arrested. He has been held in custody since then.
Cardente is expected to remain at the ACI for the duration of his state sentence and could then be sent to federal prison for the remainder of his federal term. He isn’t expected to be released until December 2056.
In its sentencing memo, the defense said Cardente has accepted responsibility for his conduct and “recognizes that he has earned the perception of him as a predator or a monster,” but that Cardente was a “damaged human being” whose childhood abuse and neglect, it said, “skewed his perception of right and wrong.”
The NBC 10 I-Team previously reported on Cardente in 2013. The then-19-year old was accused of statutory rape and child molestation in cases involving at least three victims and had previously been convicted of child sex crimes in Coventry, West Warwick and West Greenwich.
He served prison time and was ordered to register as a sex offender.
