On Sept. 14, 1999, Naughton flew from Seattle to Los Angeles on a private Disney jet. expecting a five-foot, blonde haired 13-year-old girl to wait on the pier near the roller coaster, carrying a green backpack as instructed by Naughton. Naughton had written to her about love and sex and that he "wanted to get alone in his hotel room and have [her] strip naked for him". Naughton had arranged this meeting, posing as "Hot Seattle", his online predator handle in an online chat room called "dad&daughtersex." The "girl" was actually an FBI agent.

Two days later, he was arrested by the FBI and was charged with traveling in interstate commerce with the intent to have sex with a minor, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §2423(b). After a trial ended in a hung jury, Naughton struck a plea agreement where he took a reduced sentence and admitted that he traveled from Seattle to Los Angeles last September with a "dominant purpose" to engage in sexual acts with "KrisLA", an online chat buddy he believed was a 13-year-old girl. He ended up serving no prison time, in exchange for working for the FBI for free for a year