District Attorney Scott Storey has formally charged a man for trying to get a 12-year-old girl to send him naked photos of herself over the Internet.

Aaron Balmor Chavez, 21, has been charged with one count of Internet Sexual Exploitation of a Child and one count of Attempted Sexual Exploitation of a Child.  Both counts are class four felonies. 

Aaron Chavez is on active duty in the military and is currently stationed at Hill Air Force Base in Utah.

On December 4th, the 12-year-old girl told a teacher at her school that someone she met on the Internet had asked her to send him naked pictures of herself.  The girl admitted to her teacher that she told the man that she was 13 years old.

Golden Police were called to the school to investigate.  They contacted the District Attorney’s Office who conducted the investigation, working with Lakewood police and military police in Utah. 
 
According to court records, the girl was on a social networking site called “Myyearbook.com” on December 3 when she received an instant message from a man she didn’t know. The man told her that his name was “Mike”. “Mike’s” online profile said that he was 15, but during their online chat he told the girl he was 19. 

During the course of their online communication Chavez is alleged to have asked the girl to send him naked photos. 

The school resource officer at the school the girl attended in Golden had recently presented an Internet safety program to the students.  “The
young girl in this case did all the right things,” says DA Storey, “She told a trusted adult, her teacher. We spend a great deal of our resources trying to get safety messages out to kids before they communicate with strangers or  send sexual photos to anybody over the Internet.  This story could have had a very different outcome.”

Chavez was arrested in Utah on December 11. He is in custody there and awaiting extradition to Colorado.

 The District Attorney warns parents to talk to their children about their Internet use, especially in social networking sites.  District Attorney Storey recommends that kids limit their “friends”, the people who have access to their information, to their actual friends.  If a child is contacted by someone they don’t know personally we recommend that they do not respond.  If they encounter something alarming, please encourage them to contact a trusted adult.