Florida- from www.palmbeachpost.com – A Baltimore balloon entertainer faces up to 10 years in prison after signing a plea agreement in which he admitted traveling to Lake County for sex with a 14-year-old boy he found through an Internet personal ad.

A Lake County sheriff’s detective, part of an operation probing the Internet for sexual stalkers of children, placed the ad on Craigslist in the Orlando-area “Men Seeking Men” section. It was labeled “bored nephew.”

In the agreement, filed in federal court in Orlando, Howard Scott Kalin, 48, a lawyer and owner of Funhouse Entertainment Agency in Baltimore, pleaded guilty to one count of attempted enticement of a minor to engage in sexual activity. He is scheduled to appear Sept. 14 before Chief Judge Anne C.Conway.

The document outlines facts of the case, which began when Kalin responded to the ad while in Central Florida for a convention of balloon artists and then traded online messages with the detective, who acted as the boy’s uncle.

Kalin said he was “looking for some fun tonight” and described himself as “6c’s” and “ddf,” Internet slang for “sexy” and “drug/disease free.” He also asked if the boy were “legal” but worried that he was chatting with a cop.

The detective replied that the boy was 14 and “very curious.” Kalin asked for pictures.

“Wow … he is really cute,” Kalin wrote after the detective sent an age-regressed, digital image of a fellow officer. “I’m praying you are not law enforcement, and I’m also really concerned about him. Does he really want this?”

According to the plea agreement, the married father of two sons was attending Florida SuperJam 2011, where balloon artists shared balloon-twisting tips and exchanged ideas for balloon animals and sculptures. Kalin tried to persuade the uncle to bring the boy to him at Walt Disney World.

From January until his arrest in May, Kalin, who had returned to Maryland after the convention, chatted through Yahoo! Messenger with the detective, thinking he was communicating with the boy’s uncle. They also traded text messages and spoke seven times on the phone. He detailed his sexual intentions for the boy.

Kalin arranged to meet the uncle and the boy at a restaurant in Clermont, promising to bring the youth a basketball as a gift. He flew from Baltimore to Orlando on May 23, bought the basketball at Walmart, and was arrested outside the restaurant with the ball. He told sheriff’s detectives he wanted to help the boy explore intimacy. Court documents also say that Kalin disclosed that he has authored stories about adults having sex with boys and has published them online under a pseudonym.

During a detention hearing from the Lake County Jail, Kalin appealed to the judge for bail, saying, “I am a family man who made a terrible, terrible mistake. … It’s never happened before. It would never happen again.”

On his Facebook page, Kalin described Funhouse as a business that provides balloon artists, clowns, disc jockeys, face painters, magicians and other “family entertainment” for events. He described himself as a “master balloon entertainer” who can make intricate balloon animals. Also according to the Facebook page, Kalin listed his favorite quotation as the catch-phrase line from Mame, a Broadway hit musical: “Life is a buffet and most poor slobs are starving to death!”