Man charged with soliciting teen for sex

By Jimmy LaRoue

Published: July 7, 2008

A Charlottesville man has been jailed on charges that he sent illicit text messages to a 16-year-old Stuarts Draft girl, then set up a meeting at her home.
Gregory Toney, 31, first sent illicit text messages to the girl on June 29, according to Augusta County Sheriff’s Office Investigator Brian Jenkins.
The girl received another text message Thursday saying Toney was traveling to Stuarts Draft to meet her, Jenkins said. After Toney arrived at her home, relatives obtained the license plate number from his car, Jenkins said. Toney was arrested without incident about a fourth of a mile away.
“There was never any physical meeting” between Toney and the girl, Jenkins said.
The girl’s family played a key role in the arrest, Jenkins said. Relatives contacted the sheriff’s office on June 29 after the initial text message was sent to the girl’s phone, and kept authorities apprised throughout the situation, he said.
The quick turnaround from the time authorities learned of the text messages until Toney’s arrest is typical in such cases, Jenkins said.
The sheriff’s office is seeing an increasing number of cases involving the use of computers or cell phones to send sexually suggestive messages to minors, the investigator said.
“The more technology expands, the more people use it,” Jenkins said.
Janis Wolak, research assistant professor at the University of New Hampshire’s Crimes Against Children Research Center, said “it is not surprising to think that more people are using cell phones” to solicit minors for sex, but she doesn’t know whether there is an increase in such crimes.
“We don’t have any numbers about that topic,” Wolak said. “We certainly know that in most cases where a sex offender uses the Internet, there is telephone communication.”
Cell phone solicitations, she said, are unlike online solicitations in chat rooms or instant messages in that the perpetrator needs to have the number for the minor first.
“There has to be a way to connect,” Wolak said.
Wolak said that sex crimes are decreasing nationwide.
Toney is charged with soliciting sex from a minor by using an electronic device. He is being held at the Middle River Regional Jail in Verona.