[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]He was the first Toronto man to face charges under a new law meant to stop online sexual predators. And now he’s been found guilty of entrapping an 11-year-old girl on the Internet.
Thirty-five-year-old Sergio Arana Martinez’s luring tool was his home computer. With it, he infiltrated a teen chat room in September, 2002 and began sending messages to the girl. He gave her a fake name and said he was 19-years-old. She was 10, but typed that she was actually 13.
After a month, he managed to get her into his city apartment as 50 officers worked furiously to find her.
With the help of one of the girl’s friends, police found Martinez’s cellphone number and left messages saying they wanted to talk to him about the missing girl. The next day he left her at the Islington subway station. She called her friend’s house and police found her tired and confused about 15 hours after she disappeared.
Martinez was found guilty of abduction of a person under age 16, sexual interference and using a computer to facilitate sexual interference with a person under age 14.
A sentence will be handed down later this month.
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