A Tennessee man was arrested after allegedly inappropriately communicating with a 12-year-old child.
Casper Navarrete, 22, Memphis, Tenn., is charged with child solicitation, a level 5 felony; and inappropriate communication with a child, a class A misdemeanor.
He was booked into the Kosciusko County Jail on a $1,250 preliminary bond.
According to the probable cause affidavit, on April 3, the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Office received a report regarding a child under 14 communicating inappropriately with adult males on the internet. A person said the minor was exchanging sexually inappropriate messages with the males. A person dropped off two cell phones to the sheriff’s office to conduct forensic downloads of the devices.
KCSO downloaded the contents of the cell phones and the reports were reviewed by a KCSO detective, who discovered several text message threads that involved the minor speaking with males the minor met on various internet/social platforms.
Between March 2 and 3, the minor texted a male, later identified as Navarrete. The conversation included both casual and sexual conversations.
Navarrete sent several inappropriate photos to the minor. He also asked the minor to send him inappropriate photos. The minor initially said no, but eventually sent him photos.
On March 26, Navarrete called KCSO and spoke with a detective and said he received a notice from the Department of Child Services regarding sexual abuse against the minor. Navarrete said he vaguely remembered communicating with the minor but does not remember details. Navarrete said he did not think they communicated about the minor’s age, according to court documents.
When the detective said the minor looks to be no more than 14 and the minor was actually 12, Navarrete said “yeah” and said he should not have sent photographs to the minor and called himself dumb for doing so.