ELDORADO COUNTY—Police arrested a Sonora, California man on Monday, August 11, 2014, on suspicion of sending sexual messages to a 14-year-old Lake Tahoe boy, whom the man had met at a summer camp.
Authorities said Brandon Moe, 22, had allegedly sent the teenager sexual text and Facebook messages after the boy returned home from a camp in Tuolumne County.
Moe was a camp staff member and the boy’s cabin leader. They continued to communicate after the boy left, but nothing was reported until the child’s mother detected that the messages had “changed from innocent to inappropriate and sexual,” according to a press release from the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office.
Once the mother, a Tahoe Basin resident, contacted the Sheriff’s office on August 9, 2014, patrol deputies out of the South Lake Tahoe station conducted an investigation. A warrant for Moe’s arrest was issued on August 11.
“Due to the facts of this case, and the employment of the suspect as a cabin leader at an overnight youth camp, the decision was made to dispatch El Dorado County Deputy Sheriffs to respond without delay to Sonora, Tuolumne County, join with Tuolumne County deputies, and serve both the arrest warrant and search warrant,” according to the EDSO.
The warrant alleges that Moe violated a law that prohibits the distribution or exhibition of lewd material to a minor. He was taken into custody and booked in the El Dorado County Jail in South Lake Tahoe. Bail has been set for $1 million.
