RAF MILDENHALL, England — A former U.S. Marine who spent more than three years in prison for abducting a 12- year-old British girl he met on the Internet has been deported to the United States, authorities said.
Toby Studabaker, 35, departed Manchester Airport on Saturday bound for Chicago, according to a statement issued by the Greater Manchester Police.
Studabaker, who is originally from Three Rivers, Mich., pleaded guilty to child abduction and inciting a child to commit an act of gross indecency in connection with the July 2003 incident, the statement said. He was sentenced in 2004 to serve two 4½-year sentences concurrently, but was released early.
The two traveled to Paris together before the victim returned to her parents in England. Studabaker was apprehended soon afterward in Germany, according to news reports.
The Greater Manchester Police collaborated with the British Home Office, the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI during the deportation process.
The Home Office, the equivalent to the U.S. Department of State, refused to comment on the case, citing department policy.
Upon returning to the United States, Studabaker will face trial on four separate counts under Michigan and Illinois law, according to the police statement.
Another U.S. servicemember was recently sentenced to serve time behind bars for a crime against a minor in England.
James Gardner was an Air Force staff sergeant serving at the highly secretive RAF Menwith Hill in Yorkshire before he was convicted of raping three teenage girls he met at a state-run home for at-risk youth.
Gardner, 35, was sentenced to 12 years in prison last July and a British judge ordered that he be deported upon completion of his sentence.
