(Columbia) -- Attorney General Henry McMaster says a task force he helped create has arrested 100 people suspected of soliciting children for sex over the Internet.
The hundredth arrest came Monday, after 53-year-old Samuel Hugh Wilds, Jr. of 940 Glenn Street in West Columbia was arrested for criminal solicitation of a minor.
McMaster says most of the arrests have come within the last year and a half.
McMaster says his office has prosecuted 33 individuals. All but two pleaded guilty. The others were found guilty by a jury.
Investigators say during an undercover sting conducted by the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office, Wilds solicited sex on the Internet from a person he believed to be a 13-year-old girl. Officers say Wilds was actually communicating with an undercover Spartanburg sheriff's deputy.
Deputies served a search warrant on Wilds' apartment that resulted in the seizure of a laptop computer, a webcam, a camera, a video gaming system, and various computer related items.
Wilds is being held at the Spartanburg County jail, with an assigned bond of $7,500.
A law passed in April 2004 has enabled the task force to make the arrests for criminal solicitation of a minor.
McMaster's office has used a federal grant to provide computer equipment and training for law enforcement officers on the task force.
11/7/2007 12:35:12 PM
