By Jeff Lehr

jlehr@joplinglobe.com

A stepped-up effort in sting operations by area law-enforcement agencies targeting potential child-sex predators on the Internet has produced charges against more suspects in Missouri and Oklahoma.

The Ottawa County (Okla.) Sheriff’s Department announced the arrest Wednesday of a Miami, Okla., man on a child-pornography charge as well as the arrest over the weekend of a 62-year-old man who allegedly traveled 175 miles from Blackwell, Okla., expecting to have sex with a child younger than 16.

The Jasper County Sheriff’s Department reeled in a Columbia man last week on felony charges of sexual misconduct and enticement of a child, the first case to emerge from that agency’s assignment of a detective full time to Internet sex crimes.

And the Newton County prosecutor filed additional charges Wednesday against an Illinois man who had been charged in April with a similar crime in Jasper County.

“This is the first stand-alone (case) that we’ve done,” Cpl. Craig Davis of the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department said Wednesday of the arrest of the man from Columbia.

John S. Green, 25, was taken into custody Friday night after allegedly showing up to meet who he thought was a 13-year-old girl at the Super 8 Motel in Carthage. Sheriff’s Detective Ed Bailey had been having Internet chats with Green for a month under the guise of an underage girl, according to a probable-cause affidavit filed in Jasper County Circuit Court.

Green is charged with two counts of sexual misconduct with a child and one count of enticement of a child. The probable-cause affidavit states that Green initiated Internet chat conversations with Bailey’s chat-room persona on 14 occasions between April 22 and May 23.

The affidavit states that Green exposed himself to the presumed teen and masturbated via a webcam on April 24, May 12 and May 21, and that he sent a photo of his penis to Bailey on May 6. He also allegedly offered to instruct “the girl” sexually, arranged a meeting at the motel, and promised to bring his webcam to record them having sex.

A search of Green’s motel room and vehicle led to the seizure of a laptop computer, two webcams, eight condoms and a cell phone, according to the affidavit. Davis said the computer was sent to a forensic lab in Kansas City for a review of its hard drive.

“We’ll be looking at what’s on it, who he’s been talking to and whether there are any more victims out there,” Davis said.

Bailey had been working on such cases for several months in his spare time, Davis said, and just began working full time in that capacity about four weeks ago.

“He’s got several open investigations,” Davis said. “We expect several of them to be charged soon.”

Bailey had some experience working on computer crimes with the Henry County Sheriff’s Department before being hired by the Jasper County department, Davis said. He also has been working recently with Jim Murray, the former Diamond police chief who has brought several Internet sting cases to the Newton County prosecutor’s office in recent years as a reserve officer with the Diamond Police Department.