Former Miami professor sentenced to prison after underage sex sting

A former Miami University professor who was arrested in a Missouri sex sting operation by an agent posing as a 14-year-old girl has been sentenced in federal court.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Kansas City said 54-year-old Kevin Armitage was sentenced Thursday to federal prison for two years and nine months.

The Journal-News obtained documents from Miami University in 2018 that showed Armitage previously been reprimanded 18 months earlier for violation of the Butler County school’s harassment and ethics policies.

Court records said Armitage posted details online of past sexual experiences. He also said he would be visiting the Kansas City area and asked for a recommendation.

An FBI agent replied to the post and provided a phone number that Armitage believed would connect him with a 14-year-old girl.

Armitage was arrested when he went to a restaurant where he had arranged to meet the person whom he believed was the teen’s cousin.

School officials cited Armitage in a Dec. 12, 2016, letter of reprimand that said the college instructor had violated the school’s “policy prohibiting harassment and discrimination,” “professional ethics” and “violations of Miami University’s domestic and international travel guidelines.”

In the letter, signed by Miami University President Gregory Crawford, Armitage was declared as part of the reprimand to be ineligible for any merit salary raises for three academic years, barred from “any overload, summer or winter term employment for a period of three years and from study abroad/study away courses for a period of six years.”

“This type of behavior must not occur again,” wrote Crawford.

Claire Wagner, a spokeswoman for Miami University, said in 2018 “the matter for which Kevin Armitage was disciplined in 2016 did not involve sexual harassment nor sexual misconduct.”

Armitage was still a Miami University professor when he was arrested in 2018.

The FBI notified the Butler County school on June 12, 2018 of his arrest.

The school suspended him on June 13, and he sent a letter of resignation the same day, according to his personnel file, which the Journal-News obtained through a public records request.

(The Associated Press contributed to this story)

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