Police said Wednesday that a convicted sex offender was tripped up by a lie detector test when he was asked if he was recently online talking with children. The man was out of jail on probation for obscene contact with a child over the internet.
Mahesh Patel sat next to his wife in a Fayette County court Wednesday. Patel faced his toughest day in court since pleading guilty to obscene internet contact with a child in 2007.
Police said Patel was caught by a lie detector test, when asked if he has recently had internet contact with a child.
When he was arrested in 2006, the Canton dry cleaner was accused of emailing obscene photographs of himself to a girl the thought was 13-years-old. The girl ended up being an undercover police officer.
The 2006 case is a troubling one that police said they remembered well.
"And mixed him with these naked photos were pictures of him with his small children who were 5, 6, 7 at the time," said Captain Roseanna Dove of the Peachtree City Police Department.
Patel was convicted by a jury in 2006. In 2007 the Georgia Supreme Court overturned Patel's conviction, citing a misstatement by the trial judge regarding the venue of the case.
Rather than be retried, Patel pleaded guilty and was sent to prison. Patel was out on parole when he failed a lie detector test and admitted to being online with children.
Wednesday, a judge sentenced Patel to 180 days in jail. Patel was banned from owning a computer and accessing the internet and was told he must never again communicate with a child for any reason over the internet.
"25% of all sex offenders re-offend within 15 years"
.........Sarah Tofte
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