Social Networking Helps Ohio Police Nab Sexter

MONROEVILLE, Ohio - Social networking helped lead to the arrest of a man accused of sending hundreds of sexually oriented text messages to young girls and others in northwest Ohio, police said Thursday.

Two men who posted text conversations they said they received from suspect Jason Paul Starkey on social network sites including Facebook helped police by alerting the public, said Monroeville police Capt. James Bond, who is also the interim police chief.

Police had received complaints about Starkey for weeks, but jurisdiction and other issues delayed the arrest, Bond said.

"We had no way of knowing who he was texting," Bond said. "We were getting a call here and there, but once it was on the social network sites, we started getting a lot of calls from people reporting similar conversations."

Starkey, 31, was arrested Wednesday on charges of telecommunications harassment, impersonating a police officer and resisting arrest, Bond said.

Starkey was in the Huron County jail in Norwalk on Thursday. It was not immediately known whether he had an attorney.

Rob Ballman and Paul Shaffer, both of Bellevue, received messages last week and baited the suspected sender by posing as a teenage girl and putting the conversations on social networking sites along with photos of Starkey, the Sandusky Register reported.

"It spread like wildfire," said Ballman, 26.

He said they arranged to meet Starkey at a gas station in Monroeville and drove by the site, calling out Starkey's name and asking if he was trying to solicit young girls.

Starkey fumbled with his phone and became enraged, Ballman told the newspaper.

The suspect randomly dialed numbers and initiated sexual conversations with anyone who responded, police said.

There was no evidence he engaged in sexual activity with anyone he texted, police said.

Police did not say how long they had been receiving complaints about the text messages.