BUFFALO — A Clarence man faces up to life in prison for attempting to have sex with a person he believed was a 12-year-old North Tonawanda girl in February 2025.
A federal grand jury in Buffalo has indicted Daniel Gregory, 33, of Clarence, and charged him with a single count of attempted enticement of a minor. The charge carries a mandatory minimum penalty of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life.
Gregory was arrested in June on a criminal complaint, but his indictment by a federal grand jury was not unsealed until Feb. 4. He has pleaded not guilty to the charge and is being held, in lieu of $200,000 bail, at the Niagara County jail on an attempted rape charge also stemming from a joint investigation by North Tonawanda police and agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Investigations DHS-HSI).
An originally scheduled arraignment for Gregory, on his indictment, was delayed for several days after he refused to be taken to court by U.S. Marshals. He entered his not guilty plea during a brief hearing in U.S. District Court in Buffalo on Friday morning.
According to an affidavit from an HSI special agent, on Jan. 6, 2025, North Tonawanda Police (NTPD) detectives “learned that a person named ‘Daniel Gregory’ was sending messages to other Facebook users asking the following question: ‘You know any NT teens I could hook up with? 13-16.’ “ The NTPD detectives were able to locate the messages and take screenshots of them.
They then located a Facebook account for Daniel Gregory and matched photos from the account to booking photos from the Niagara County jail.
On Jan. 9, 2025, an undercover NTPD detective created a Facebook profile under the name “Alexis Jones” and sent Gregory a friend request, which he accepted. The HSI special agent said, in his affidavit, that Gregory began sending messages to “Alexis Jones” via Facebook Messenger.
Gregory asked “Alexis Jones” how old she was and she responded, “im 12 hbu (How about you).” Gregory replied, “32.”
According to the special agent’s affidavit, Gregory began attempting to video call “Alexis Jones” and asked “Alexis Jones” to call him. None of the video calls were answered and investigators said all communication between the undercover detective and Gregory was done electronically through Facebook Messenger.
Investigators said Gregory made multiple attempts to “coordinate a meeting with ‘Alexis Jones’.” He also, according to the HSI agent, “repeatedly attempted to video call and sent explicit photos of himself” to the undercover Facebook account.
Included in the HSI agent’s affidavit were summaries of multiple sexually explicit conversations.
In February 2025, Gregory arranged to meet “Alexis Jones” at an apartment in the City of Tonawanda to engage in sexual activity. When Gregory arrived at the apartment, North Tonawanda Police detectives answered his knock at the door and took him into custody.
In voluntary questioning by detectives, Gregory was asked if he had come to the apartment to have sex with “a 12-year-old.” He replied, “Right, yeah.”
A court-authorized search of Gregory’s cellphone revealed that he had also sought to have sex with teens in Orchard Park.
In May 2019, Gregory was convicted in Cheektowaga Town Court on a charge of second-degree harassment. In that case, he was accused of contacting a minor victim on social media and attempting to pursue a romantic relationship with her for approximately two years.