A 35-year-old Mount Vernon man was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison for engaging in sexual activity with a 14-year-old boy after promising him a vape pen.

Leland Robinson posed as a teenager when he met the New Canaan, Conn. teenager on social media in the summer of 2019. Their communications for two months included Robinson sending the boy a naked picture of himself. Robinson engaged in sexual activity with the boy that September and then again on Oct. 24, 2019, outside the teen’s home.

A later review of the boy’s cellphone records revealed that shortly afterwards, the boy texted Robinson to run and hide because his father had called police about a suspicious man in the neighborhood, according to court documents.

When New Canaan police confronted Robinson that evening, he claimed to be a 17-year-old student heading home to do schoolwork and he was in the neighborhood to retrieve a backpack although he could not provide the address where he left it, according to court documents. He said he had no ID but gave a date of birth that made him 18. He was actually 31 at the time.

He was charged with interfering with police and released. But after the boy was interviewed, an arrest warrant was issued charging Robinson with sexual assault.

The FBI was notified in January 2020 and helped police arrest Robinson at his job in Brooklyn. The following month he was arrested on the federal charge of enticement of a minor. He was convicted last July following a jury trial at which he represented himself.

Following sentencing by U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas in White Plains on Friday in White Plains federal court, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said the case showed how important it was for “parents and caregivers to have conversations with their children about the dangers of communicating online with strangers.”

“Leland Robinson’s crime is the nightmare of every parent of a child who uses a smartphone,” Williams said in a statement.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Mount Vernon man sentenced to 50 years for sexual activity with teen