CLARIFICATION: Chief Sean Wallace issued a clarification Monday evening. He wished to make it clear that Pennycuff chatted online with 80 girls. He is only suspected of sexual solicitation – wanting to meet or having met – with 13 of those girls.
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Authorities have arrested an Ark City man they say used the Internet to arrange meetings – or attempt to arrange meetings – with 13 young, teenage girls from Cowley County.
Thomas Lee Pennycuff, 25, faces at least one charge of electronic sexual solicitation of a child in Sedgwick County. In Cowley County, he faces 13 counts of Internet sexual solicitation and a count of aggravated indecent liberties.
He is being held in the Cowley County Jail on $25,000 bond.
Pennycuff was arrested earlier this month after Ark City police were contacted by investigators with Sedgwick County’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Cowley County law enforcement agencies are members of this task force.
Sedgwick County authorities told police here that Pennycuff had been chatting with an investigator posing online as a 13-year-old girl. Pennycuff was being monitored by authorities because he had been chatting with young, teenage girls and asking them to meet him, Ark City Chief Sean Wallace said.
On Nov. 2, Pennycuff agreed to meet the detective ? who was posing as a teen ? in Wichita. Ark City police followed Pennycuff out of town and confirmed to Sedgwick County authorities that the suspect was on his way.
He was arrested after arriving at a preset location in Wichita.
Pennycuff was eventually released because he claimed to be having a heart attack and was taken to an area hospital.
But authorities in Cowley County, based on the original arrest, obtained a warrant to search Pennycuff’s home in Ark City. Wallace said police recovered a computer and physical evidence linking the suspect to Internet solicitation.
Pennycuff was arrested on additional charges Nov. 3.
Further investigation, Wallace said, revealed that Pennycuff had contacted and chatted online with 80 Cowley County girls. Police have interviewed all of the girls and found that Pennycuff had met or at least tried to arrange a meeting with 13 of them.
The Arkansas City Police Department is appealing to parents of young teenage girls who frequent social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. Please ask your daughters if they have had any contact online or otherwise with Thomas Pennycuff.?
If they have, please contact the Arkansas City Police Department Investigations Division at 620-441-4435.?
