KWTX
May 16, 2008
http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/19011709.html
A minister who counseled adults at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano is among those snared in a sting in Bryan that targeted online sexual predators.
Police say Joe Barron, 53, drove more than three hours from Plano to Bryan to meet what he thought was a 13-year-old girl he had met over the Internet.
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The girl was actually a Bryan police officer.
A Bryan police statement says the online conversations with the minister were sexually explicit in nature.
The statement says officers asked Barron on May 6 for an
in-person rendezvous in Bryan, where Barron was arrested.
Inside his car alongside a hymnal, officers found a box of condoms and a Web camera, which police say they think was intended as a present for the teenage girl Barron expected to meet.
Mike Buster, the executive pastor of the 20,000-member church, issued a statement Friday in which he said, "We are disturbed and saddened by the reports we have heard and we are praying for the Barron family. We are fully cooperating with the police in their investigation."
Barron's bond was set at $7,000.
He's the 12th person Bryan police have arrested for online solicitation of minors since 2006.
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