Internet Predator Sting Nabs 6 Houston Men

HOUSTON — Seven men were indicted Wednesday after Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office used satellite technology to access Internet chat rooms, from remote locations, where investigators said the defendants arranged sexual liaisons with children in Huntsville.
Investigators with the attorney general’s Cyber Crimes Unit along with the Walker County Sheriff’s Department set up a mobile computer lab during a two-week long undercover operation.




Seven men — six from the Houston area and one from Fort Worth — allegedly came to Huntsville to meet children they talked with in Internet chat rooms. Authorities said the children were actually officers from the Cyber Crimes Unit, who arrested the men when they showed up for their meetings. “They were very surprised and disappointed when the person they saw was not 13-year-old Amy, but instead a middle-aged investigator with the Office of the Attorney General,” Abbott said. According to Abbott, the investigators logged onto Internet chat rooms, assumed the identity of a 13- or 14-year-old girl, and within minutes they were contacted by somebody else, typically a middle-aged man who is seeking to have sex with a person they believe to be a teenage girl. “It is the most graphic, explicit, sexual conversation that you could think of would be what our investigators experienced in these chats,” attorney general investigator David Boatwright said. The following men were arrested and indicted in Walker County in March and April of this year:

• Shawn Joseph Stauffer, 25, of Houston — charged with attempted aggravated sexual assault of a child.
  
• Jason Wade Scott, 21, of Richwood — charged with attempted aggravated sexual assault of a child.
  
• Mohamed Khair Al-Kalla, 23, of Katy — charged with attempted sexual assault of a minor.
  
• Michael Edward Penton, 44, of Magnolia in Montgomery County — charged with attempted aggravated sexual assault of a child and attempted sexual assault of a child.
  
• Gregory Lee Battson, 32, of Houston — charged with attempted sexual assault of a child
  
• Kent Steffler, 47, of Fort Worth — charged with attempted aggravated sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl

Patrick Craig, 22, of Spring was also arrested, but the charges he faces were not released. Relatives of Al-Kalla, who is a University of Houston student, said he is not guilty of the charges and will fight the charges. He is free on bond and currently enrolled in summer classes. Penton, Battson, Steffler and Craig are out on bond. Stauffer and Scott remain in jail