A McComb man is in the Tangipahoa Parish, La., jail today, charged with allegedly soliciting sex from a police officer posing as a 15-year-old.
According to the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Department, deputies on Wednesday night arrested Chris Thomas, 42, 1317 Harrison Ave., McComb, in Hammond, La., where he had allegedly agreed to meet the girl.
Thomas, a former McComb police officer, is being held in the parish jail on a warrant from Kenner, La., police charging him with computer-aided solicitation of a minor for sexual purposes and improper behavior with a juvenile.
Both charges are felonies.
Kenner police — assisted by Pike County sheriff’s deputies, the Mississippi Highway Patrol and Pike County District Attorney Dee Bates — searched Thomas’ home after the arrest, seizing computer equipment, Kenner police said.
Charges from other Louisiana parishes and counties in Mississippi may be pending against Thomas, according to Tangipahoa Parish officials.
Kenner police said the events leading to Thomas’ arrest began earlier this month, when a member of the department’s cybercrime unit, posing as a teenage girl, began chatting onlineand met with a person identified with the screen name “beenmisbehaven,” who identified himself as a 41-year-old Hammond man.
The conversation became sexually explicit, and at one point Thomas allegedly exposed himself over a webcam.
Thomas later told the “girl” that he wanted to go to Kenner to meet her for sex, and later made arrangements to meet her Wednesday night in Hammond.
Tangipahoa parish authorities received information that Thomas was going to Hammond to meet the girl, and a sheriff’s detective posed as the girl to meet Thomas.
Thomas was arrested when he arrived at the rendezvous, the parking lot of a Hammond business on University Avenue.
