NC man faces charges after ‘explicit’ conversation with Beaufort cop posing as child online
A North Carolina man is the latest person to face charges stemming from a week-long sting in March from the Beaufort Police Department and the Attorney General’s Internet Crimes Against Children task force.
William Stevens, 60, of Goldsboro, North Carolina, was charged Friday with criminal solicitation of a minor, jail records show.
In March, the Beaufort Police Department, the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office and the Attorney General’s task force teamed up for “Operation Rock The Boat,” a sting aimed at charging people targeting children and seeking child sex abuse material online.
In the week that the operation was underway, four people came to Beaufort County under the guise that they would be meeting up with minors, who they believed to be between 12 and 14 years old, for sex. The “minors” were actually undercover police officers.
Stevens is the 9th person to be charged from the operation, according to Lt. Charles Raley from the Beaufort Police Department. He was arrested in North Carolina earlier this month and extradited to Beaufort County Friday, according to Raley.
At that time, Zachary Chappo, 36, of Bluffton; Micheal Ford, 51, of Bluffton, and Micheal Mahaney, 59 from Yemassee, also were arrested as part of the sting and faced charges including attempted criminal sexual conduct with a minor, attempted domestic violence of a person under 18 and criminal solicitation, according to previous reporting by the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette.
As of Monday afternoon, Stevens was still in custody at the detention center in Beaufort.
If you or someone you know has been affected by sexual assault, help can be found by calling Hopeful Horizons at 843-770-1070.
When we publish mugshots
The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette publishes police booking photos, or mugshots, in the following instances:
In situations where a public figure or someone in a position of public trust is arrested
In cases where there is an immediate and widespread threat to public safety
In cases where the arrested person is accused of a crime reporters have evidence to believe involved numerous, unknown victims
Reporters will avoid using mugshots as lead images for online articles in order to limit their circulation on social media, except in cases where the public is served by the immediate identification of the accused. Reporters and editors may use discretion in situations that don’t meet the criteria outlined in this policy but still present a compelling reason to publish a mugshot.
