Prominent Voice of the Religious Right Arrested in Underage Sex Sting (Part 75,256 in the Series)

Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet at 2:24 PM on April 6, 2009.

This story from the Denver Post (via the Colorado Independent), requires little commentary:

A man who narrates Christian CDs has been arrested on suspicion of using the Internet to arrange sex with a teenage girl.

Juan Alberto Ovalle, 42, thought he was corresponding with a girl under the age of 15, but instead it was undercover officers with the Jefferson County district attorney's office, according to court documents.

Ovalle works for a Spanish-speaking arm of the Colorado Springs Christian group Focus on the Family and narrates Biblical text for CDs, according to Internet websites that sell the products.

[...]

Ovalle serves the Trans World Radio ministry and also the Spanish broadcasting department of Focus on the Family, according to one of the sites.

"He founded Spanish Christian Audio in 2001 to help Christian organizations with their audio needs," the site said.

Ovalle was arrested Friday when he drove to Lakewood to meet the young girl, who was actually an undercover officer, to have sex, the DA's office said in a media release.

On Thursday and Friday, Ovalle made "sexually graphic statements in a chat room to a person he believed to be an underage teen," according to the DA.

Ovalle asked the teen specific sexual questions and told her about sex acts he would perform with her, according to an arrest affidavit.

According to the affidavit, during one exchange, Ovalle asked: "Would you like to meet?"

The undercover officer told Ovalle that her "mom" was working and she was home alone.

Ovalle is a native of the Dominical Republic, and I just can't wait for some wing-nut to point to his arrest as yet more proof that immigrants are a menace to our otherwise wholesome society.

Tagged as: focus on the family, hypocrisy, ovalle, underage sex

Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.