MySpace messages lead to arrest

BY FRANK MAIN MySpace.com touts itself as "a place for friends." But a Naperville teenager discovered the social networking Web site also is a ...


BY FRANK MAIN

MySpace.com touts itself as “a place for friends.”

But a Naperville teenager discovered the social networking Web site also is a place for sexual predators, authorities said Friday.

Gerald Wheeler, 40, is being held in Salt Lake City on federal charges of using MySpace to coax the 13-year-old girl to engage in sexual conduct.

“This coordinated effort has taken another sexual predator off the street and off line,” Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said.

In July, the girl’s father contacted Naperville police and reported his daughter received obscene messages on her MySpace site and her Tagged.com account from people calling themselves Mike and Brian, authorities said.

The messages allegedly asked her to fly to New York to enter a modeling contract in exchange for engaging in sexual conduct.

With the help of her father, police found photos of the girl in sexual poses, authorities said.

Computer messages traced

Investigators traced the computer messages to an Internet cafe and gaming facility in Salt Lake City. The owner said Wheeler was a manager and the only one with access to the computer at the time the girl was contacted.

A cell phone number for “Brian” belonged to a former employee who was close to Wheeler, authorities said.

Wheeler was convicted in 1994 in Utah of attempted forcible sex abuse, a felony, and was placed on the state’s sex offender registry, records show.

“Wheeler is a prime example of why parents need to educate themselves on the Internet and pay close attention to their children’s activity while online,” Naperville police Sgt. Bill Davis said.

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