Washington: A US Homeland Security Department official was arrested on Tuesday night on charges of using his computer to seduce a child after he allegedly struck up sexually explicit conversations with a detective posing as a 14-year-old girl, authorities said.
Brian J Doyle, 55, is charged with seven counts of use of a computer to seduce a child and 16 counts of transmission of harmful material to a minor, according to the Polk County, Florida, Sheriff's Office.
Doyle, a deputy press secretary, will be placed on administrative leave, although it's unclear if it he will be paid, a department official said.
In interviews with police, Doyle confessed and has agreed to waive extradition to Florida from Maryland, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said.
On March 12, Doyle contacted a Polk County computer crimes detective who was posing online as a 14-year-old girl and "initiated a sexually-explicit conversation with her. Doyle knew that the 'girl' was 14 years old, and he told her who he was and that he worked for the US Department of Homeland Security," according to a statement from the sheriff's office.
Judd said Doyle, in the first conversation, told the detective his job with the department and "started immediately into pretty vulgar language. He explained in graphic detail the sexual acts he wanted to perform with this 14-year-old."
As the two continued chatting online, police said, Doyle gave the detective his home and office phone numbers as well as the number to his government-issued cellphone. He also had explicit telephone conversations with the detective posing as the girl, authorities said.
In addition, he sent ‘hard-core pornographic movie clips’ over the Internet and also used America Online's instant-messaging service to have explicit online conversations, according to authorities.
"The investigation revealed that the phone numbers given to the detective were in fact Doyle's and that the AOL account was registered to him," the sheriff's office said.
Doyle also sent photos of himself that were not sexually explicit but said he would send nude photos if the "girl" would buy a Web camera and send him nude photos, according to authorities. In one photo, Doyle's Department of Homeland Security tag is visible, Judd said.
"Many of the conversations he initiated ... are too extraordinary and graphic for public release," a statement from the sheriff's office said.
"I read the transcripts," Judd said. "I wanted to see if this was just as outrageous as the detectives depicted it. It shocked all of us who have worked vice, narcotics, organised crime, homicides."
A Department of Homeland Security spokesman said the agency would cooperate in the probe.
"We take these allegations very seriously," Russ Knocke said.
Doyle is divorced and has children, Judd said. Authorities believe he could have held similar conversations online with others, the sheriff said, because at some points during online chats he would address the detective by the wrong name.
Doyle never attempted to arrange a visit but did mention knowing someone in the region, Judd added.
Before Doyle's arrest on Tuesday night at his Silver Spring, Maryland, home, the "girl" had told him of her access to a web camera and that her mother would be away so "he was eager to rush home from work."
Detectives from agencies, including the US Secret Service and Montgomery County, Maryland, Police Department, knocked on his door as he was online and served the arrest warrant, Judd said. They also immediately executed a search warrant for his home.
"We found his communication still on his computer with our undercover detective," he said. "Had we not been posing as a 14-year-old, Brian Doyle would have been grooming someone, some young lady, for a sexual encounter."
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