admin @ Wed, 2006-09-13 11:00
This year, while living with his pregnant girlfriend and her three children in a Richardson, Texas, apartment, he struck up an online romance with a young woman. The talk turned filthy.
Police say they talked about meeting but never did. According to recently revamped Texas law - which makes solicitation a crime even if there is no physical meeting - they didn't have to. Here, in essence, it's the thought that counts.
"I just keep it in my mind that every second that I'm talking to this guy is one second he's not talking to a kid," said Cope, who also helped catch two other men for Murphy police. "I'm a religious person. The chats can be pretty dark and nasty stuff. I look toward God for help."
After Perverted Justice turned over the chat transcript to Murphy police, a detective phoned Schlagel. He turned over his computer and was soon charged with online solicitation of a child. He is awaiting trial.
"I didn't hurt nobody but myself," a soft-spoken Schlagel said from a visitor's booth at the Collin County Jail. He has no criminal history and says he is not a threat. He also denies agreeing to meet the undercover volunteer.
"I should be granted a fine, yes, probation, yes, but going to prison over this? I would never in my life ever think of child molestation, period," he said.
But he doesn't deny talking online with someone he thought was 14. Of the four men Murphy arrested recently with Perverted Justice's help, Schlagel's chat was the most graphic, police said. They did not release it because of the pending criminal case.
And police tell a slightly different story about how Schlagel tried to "ignore" his cyber-ingenue. They say it was Schlagel's girlfriend who blocked the Perverted Justice volunteer's messages.
By then, Schlagel "had already sent many sexually explicit pictures as well as performed an unmentionable act on webcam," said Murphy police Officer Kevin Carter.
"I love my son, but if he did what they say he did, I don't know what to say," he said. "He had no business trying to chat with a 14-year-old girl."
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