Friday, Mar. 11, 2005

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Pike supt. faces sex charge

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCitizenNews.com

Peachtree City Police say Pike County's school superintendent tried to solicit sex online from a girl who he thought was 15 years old, but was actually an undercover police officer.

Dr. Darryl Dean, of 637 Whitfield Walk in Zebulon, was arrested Thursday morning and is charged with one felony count of violating the Computer Pornography and Child Exploitation Prevention Act of 1999.

Dean cannot have contact with any children and may not have access to Internet or any other device that can communicate electronic messages, except for a cell phone, according to an order from Magistrate Joe A. Tinsley, who set Dean's bond at $25,000.

The felony charge was the result of a series of online discussions Dean had with an undercover officer posing as the 15-year-old girl in an online chat room, police said. This is the fifth such case Peachtree City has made against an offender lurking in a chat room, said Peachtree City Police Chief James Murray.

Dean thought the officer was a homeschooled 15-year-old girl who lived in Peachtree City, Murray said.

Dean, who lives at 637 Whitfield Walk in Zebulon, was arrested Thursday morning at approximately 9:45 a.m. by Peachtree City police, who were assisted by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Pike County Sheriff's Department and the Fayette County District Attorney's office.

A search warrant was executed on Dean's office and computers at the Pike County Board of Education in Zebulon, police said. Additional charges may be filed later depending on the results of the investigation once the data from Dean's computers is analyzed, Murray said.

During Thursday afternoon's bond hearing, Dean said he is married and has two children, a 15-year-old and a 7-year-old.

Murray warned parents to be aware of who their children are communicating with over the Internet because there are people out there wanting to take advantage of children.

"The fact that this person had a position of authority over children, it just goes to show you it can happen to anybody, any place," Murray said. Any such contact with a sexual predator could damage a child psychologically, he added.

Police believe Dean's explicit communications occurred while he was on his work computer.

One of the reasons the police department conducts such investigations is due to the high use of computers in the city, Murray said. The agency routinely works such cases with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he added.

From the department's experience, it has been determined that the suspects arrested on online porn/child exploitation charges are well-educated and "the typical person next door you'd never think would be a pedophile."

District Attorney Scott Ballard did not oppose granting bond, but asked for the conditions to keep Dean away from other children and to restrict his computer use. Tinsley said Dean could use a cell phone as long as it didn't have the capability of Internet access.