Charles E. Lawrence III, a 60-year-old accountant and real estate dealer, was sentenced in Superior Court in Bridgeport Friday to eight years in prison, suspended after he serves two , ctpost.com reported.

Lawrence, who will have to register as a sex offender, tried to blame his lousy eyesight for mistaking a “13” for an “18” in a text he thought was from a teen with whom he was arranging a tryst, according to the ctpost.com story.

Judge Robert Devlin did not buy Lawrence’s argument about his eyesight or his claim he was not a pedophile, ctpost.com reported.

Lawrence entered an Alford plea in April to second-degree attempted sexual assault, attempted risk of injury to a minor and enticing a minor to have an obscene performance, the ctpost.com reported. Pleas entered under the Alford Doctrine, mean the person pleads guilty but does not admit to the criminal act.

Lawrence was one of nearly a dozen men arrested last fall after being lured to a home in Fairfield by the producers of “Hansen vs. Predator,” the Kickstarter-funded American reality television, police said. The show featured Chris Hansen of Stamford, former host of “To Catch a Predator” on MSNBC and on "Dateline NBC."

Lawrence, and the others, engaged in explicit conversations online with reality show staffers posing as minors before showing up at the house expecting sex, police said.

To read the full ctpost.com story, click here.

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