Sex offender admits to enticing 12-year-old, murder-for-hire plot

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) — Acting United States Attorney Sara Miron Bloom said that a 30-year-old Rhode Island man who was previously convicted for child molestation admitted to a judge that he enticed a 12-year-old girl into sexual encounters multiple times and attempted a murder-for-hire plot in a scheme to eliminate her as a witness.

29-year-old Chandler Cardente was charged with enticement of a minor, commission of a felony while being required to register as a sex offender, and interstate murder for hire.

In 2021, Cardente posed as a 17-year-old, spoke to the girl over a messaging app, and told her he wished to meet her for a “sexual encounter.”

In December of that year, he picked up the girl a short distance from her middle school, “drove her to various locations in Rhode Island, and engaged in sexual contact with her multiple times.”

After he was arrested and held at the Adult Correctional Institutions, Cardente communicated by telephone with another person, expressing his intent that the victim be murdered.

When speaking with an undercover officer, he said that the victim needed “to end up dead” because she was “a witness,” and offered the officer $200 and $1,500 in equipment.

Cardente is scheduled to be sentenced on April 23.