A 23-year-old Haines man was indicted by a Juneau grand jury last week and arrested on eight felony charges, including five counts of enticing a minor online and three counts of third-degree sexual abuse of a minor.
According to court documents, the female victim was 13 years old.
The man is accused of using Facebook to “entice, solicit or encourage” the 13-year-old girl to engage in sexual activity. The indictment also alleges the man engaged in sexual contact with the victim.
The offenses allegedly occurred in July.
Haines Borough interim police chief Robert Griffiths said the department has been working for months on the investigation that resulted in the arrest. “It took probably a month just to get the search warrant material back from Facebook and other electronic media accounts, and there were other investigative search warrants that needed to be served and those took time,” he said.
Griffiths said sexual abuse of a minor cases are more common in Haines than people may think, but they are sometimes hard to prove in court.
“It’s quite often very difficult because it’s often just the word of the victim and the perpetrator. That is why we do such an exhaustive investigation to develop corroborating evidence,” he said.
The man was indicted Friday and arrested Saturday. He was released on $10,000 cash bail.
Conditions of the man’s release include no contact with girls under age 18, no access to social media and no contact with the victim or her immediate family.
The man appeared in Superior Court Tuesday. His trial is scheduled for Jan. 4.