When 40 year old Anaheim registered sex offender David Walker Bryan, arrived at the location where he thought he was going to meet a 13 year old girl for sex, instead, he met the officers of the Huntington Beach Police Department, HBPD. Rather than acting upon pedophilic tendencies, Bryan now is in jail facing charges which could land him in state prison for up to 5 years. He pleaded not guilty.

A release from the Orange County District Attorney’s Office states “On March 3, 2010, Bryan is accused of responding to an advertisement on craigslist.com. The ad was placed by HBPD in the "personals" section under "casual encounters," which listed a 13-year-old girl in need of help. Bryan is accused of contacting the undercover HBPD detective, whom he believed to be a 13-year-old girl, and sending her several graphic, sexually explicit e-mails and text messages, including instructing her to masturbate at school.

The defendant is accused of arranging to meet the fictitious 13 year old on March 4, 2010, at a location he believed to be her home with the intent to engage in illegal sexual activity with a minor. Bryan is accused of asking her to wear red underwear. At approximately 7:00 p.m., the defendant was arrested by HBPD at the pre-arranged location.

Bryan is accused of being a registered sex offender stemming from a 1989 sexual assault case in Arizona.”

Susan Kang Schroeder, Public Affairs Counsel in the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said “We want people to know that police officers are conducting these types of stings because we want predators to stay off of the internet and we want them to fear that if they’re making lewd, suggestive, sexually explicit comments to a person they think is a 13 year old girl, it could very well be a police officer on the other end. Internet crimes are especially egregious because parents may think that they have locked the door and done everything right {to protect their children} yet these internet predators are able to come into their house through the internet.”

Entrapment is one possible defense Bryan could use in the case, but Deputy District Attorney Eric Scarbrough of the Sexual Assault Unit, the prosecutor on this case, told www.OC180NEWS.com this type of police sting has been held to be a valid method of catching internet sexual predators.

Scarbrough also indicated the defendant’s previous conviction as a sex offender was related to children and demonstrates the effectiveness of these sting operations in removing pedophiles from the community. Recent attention on the tragic murders of two girls in San Diego County shows the importance of these internet stings. Scarbrough said the stings are “one more tool the police have” to catch these criminals before they can strike.

The DA’s office reported the defendant, a mechanic, is charged with two felony counts of attempted lewd acts on a child under 14, one felony count of contacting a child with the intent to commit lewd acts, and one felony count of meeting a minor with the intent to commit lewd acts.

As of yesterday afternoon, Bryan, who is 5’9” and 215 lbs., was in custody. His bail was set at $250,000.

The investigation is ongoing. Anyone with additional information or who believes they have been a victim is encouraged to contact Supervising District Attorney Investigator Randy Litwin at (714) 347-8794 or HBPD Detective Alan Caouette at
(714) 536-5951.