James Young III - Internet Predator - Also had Child Porn

A Farwell man, arrested in Marshall in June for allegedly enticing a child to have sex, was ordered Tuesday to stand trial.

James Young III, 34, was arrested June 15 —Fathers Day — when he arrived at a Marshall McDonald's expecting to meet a 13-year-old girl, according to Calhoun County Sheriff Department deputies.

During testimony in district court Tuesday, a witness from Perverted Justice testified she exchanged sexually explicit messages with Young, who used the name Fredold_2000. The woman, Nancy Popham of Mt. Vernon, Ohio, testified she pretended to be a 13-year-old girl from Marshall with an online name of Kylieblue.

Perverted Justice is a Web site that trains people to search for Internet sexual predators and works with police to catch them. She used Marshall because of past cases investigated by Perverted Justice working with the sheriff department, prosecutors said.

Popham testified that Young suggested a meeting so he could spend the night with the girl in a hotel room, shower and have oral sex.

"If it was possible not to get in trouble would you think about having sex with me," Popham said Young wrote her on May 24.

She said Young also sent three pictures of himself, including one of him naked with an erection.

Popham, pretending to be the young girl, agreed to meet Young at the restaurant but when he walked to the counter after smiling at a teenage girl who was inside with deputies as a decoy, Detective Guy Picketts said he walked up and said, "Jim, Calhoun County Sheriff Department. You are under arrest. Put your hands on the counter and don't get stupid."

During an interview after his arrest, Young told Picketts he had child porn on his computer and prosecutors played a small portion of a video for Judge Marvin Ratner.

After the testimony, Assistant Prosecutor David Heiss asked to change the charges from enticing a child for immoral purposes to possession of child sexually abusive material, use of a computer to possess the material and attempted third-degree criminal sexual abuse. The judge granted the motion.

Defense Attorney Ken Marks argued there is no way to determine the age of the people depicted in the video seized from the computer and that his client did nothing to attempt to have sex with the young girl in the restaurant.

"He just showed up at a McDonald's," Marks said.

Ratner disagreed.

"He appeared at a McDonald's with the intent to meet someone he believed to be a 13-year-old girl," the judge said, "and start a chain of events which would end in a sexual act."

If convicted on all charges Young faces up to seven years in prison. He remains in the county jail.