A sting operation by the Lake County Sheriff’s Office’s Criminal Investigations Division has led to three charges against a Michigan man for attempting to have sex with what he believed to be a teenage girl, according to a news release.
Kyle J. Conner, 36, East Hazel Street in Ferndale, of the 700 blocks Mich., was charged with indecent solicitation of a child, meeting with a minor, and attempting to meet with a “female,” then providing dangerous substances, according to authorities.
Lake County Judge Theodore Potkonjak set Connor’s bond at $1 million bail at a bond hearing Friday afternoon. Conner remains in the Lake County Jail, and his next court appearance is March 8.
Connor has been conversing online with an undercover cop acting as a girl under 15 for the previous few weeks. Throughout the conversation, according to the press release, Conner asked who he thought the child was about her nude photo. He also sent her “sexually suggestive images of himself.”
After the initial exchange, Connors had a sexual encounter with detectives posing as a juvenile girl, the release said. He finalized plans to meet “the girl” in Chicago for a conference on Thursday.
When Conner arrived at the scene, he was met by detectives and arrested without incident, authorities said. The sting operation was a joint effort between the Sheriff’s Criminal Investigation Unit and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS). In a news release, Lake County Sheriff John D. Idleburg said that the Special Investigations Group (SIG) and NCIS worked together to arrest “several adults who attempted to have sex with children.”
“We will continue actively seeking out those who prey on our children,” Idelburg said. In an email Friday, Deputy Director Christopher Covelli said that while NCIS assists in the investigation, it is not a military matter.
He said NCIS is part of the Special Investigations Team. “They play a vital role in all investigations worked by SIG.”