A Los Angeles man is being prosecuted for allegedly getting teenage girls he met on MySpace.com, at least one of whom is from Temecula, to send him nude photos of themselves, a sheriff’s sergeant said.
Kevin Dale Pierce, 33, was arrested last Wednesday when deputies searched his home and found several external hard drives containing numerous photos of undressed girls, many of them teenagers 14 to 17 years old, Temecula police Sgt. Bill DeLuna said.
The investigation started in January, when a Temecula resident reported that her 14-year-old daughter was swapping notes with someone who claimed to be a 19-year-old art student at UCLA, DeLuna said.
The two started an online relationship last November and, after several weeks, established a bond of trust, according to the sergeant. The suspect persuaded the girl to send photos of herself in various stages of undress, purportedly for an art project, DeLuna said.
The girl’s mother noticed her daughter’s computer screen and read messages from the suspect asking for additional pictures in varied poses, DeLuna said.
The woman told a deputy that the e-mail she spotted was from someone who called himself "kev pie" and thanked the girl for pictures she had sent him, according to an affidavit for a search warrant.
The e-mailer then requested that the girl send some more snapshots and wrote, "Is there any way you can also take the exact same angles, straight from behind and from the 45 degree side … but on the floor instead of standing? so I can draw the legs and the body bent in shape," the affidavit states.
The mother did not know what the e-mail referred to and asked her daughter about it.
The girl later told investigators that she informed the person she was corresponding with that she was 14 years old. She told detectives that she and the suspect began chatting on "I Chat" after meeting on MySpace.com, according to the affidavit.
Investigators tracked down Pierce’s ISP address, accessed his MySpace account and determined he was actually 33 and that he had been communicating with at least 10 other girls, persuading them to send nude photos of themselves, police allege.
Detectives tracked the suspect to a home at 710 First St. in Sunnyvale through a Yahoo.com account.
"He was a charmer," DeLuna said. "They (the alleged victims) started to really like this guy."
When they served a search warrant at his home, investigators called the suspect on a cell phone and told him what they were doing, DeLuna said.
Pierce willingly came to Temecula to meet with investigators last Wednesday.
"He seemed pretty eager to try to clear his name," DeLuna said, adding that Pierce told them he did not believe he was breaking the law as long as he did not meet the girls in person.
Detectives arrested him on the spot.
Pierce pleaded guilty last Friday to 25 counts of possession of obscene material involving a minor in a sexual manner, and two counts each of attempted communication with a minor with the intent to commit a specified offense and annoying or molesting a child under the age of 18.
Pierce posted a $50,000 bond and was released on Saturday, jail records show.
He is due back in court Thursday for a felony settlement conference. An April 4 preliminary hearing date was also set.