A computer programmer and an emergency dispatcher face charges of taking nude photos of a 16-year-old girl one of the men lured through cyberspace, says a Web site devoted to crime news.
APBNews.com says 45-year-old Claude E. Davis, Jr. and 24-year-old Raymond Lee Washam have pleaded not guilty to charges of engaging a child in sexually-explicit conduct for use in visual or print media. But the Web site also says police believe the teenager was a willing participant.
Fort Smith police tell APBNews Davis struck up an online friendship with the teen several weeks ago. "He was into S/M and they communicated over the Internet," says Sgt. Jeff Barrows. "He paid for and arranged for the girl to come to Arkansas, which she did willingly." The girl is said to be from Augusta, GA.
Police tell APBNews the girl posed in several sexually explicit photographs with Washam, an emergency dispatcher for the North Little Rock Office of Emergency Services, with Davis's cleaning woman finding the pictures earlier this month and bumping into the girl at the apartment.
APBNews says the girl told the cleaning woman she was 18, but the woman reported the incident to her supervisor - who then contacted police.
Davis was arrested in early October; Washam turned himself in later in the month after learning of a warrant for his arrest about to come. The state department of human services is arranging for the girl to return home.
Davis is free on $75,000 bond. Washam is free on $35,000 bond, but he's on paid administrative leave from his job while his superiors investigate the care. They tell APBNews he'll be fired if he's found guilty.
