Feds: Man Had Sex With Teenager He Met On MySpace

POSTED: 10:24 pm CST October 31, 2006

UPDATED: 10:47 am CST November 1, 2006

CHICAGO -- A 28-year-old Woodridge man who lives with his grandparents is in federal custody Tuesday, charged with having a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old girl he befriended through MySpace.com.

At an initial court appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Morton Denlow Tuesday, Huston Kline was ordered held pending a detention hearing at 2:30 p.m. Thursday, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Schneider. Prosecutors maintain that Kline should remain in custody because he is a flight risk and a threat to the community.

In a criminal complaint filed Tuesday, it was alleged that Kline met the girl on MySpace about April or May. Kline -- who used an AOL AIM screen name of "puremetalgod" -- and the girl initially talked about music and bands. The girl told Kline that she enjoyed talking to him and that "she thought he was a very cool guy," according to the complaint. The two then started talking about sex, and Kline allegedly suggested that they meet to have sex. Kline told her that he would pick her up in front of her middle school, and he added that he lived with his grandparents in Woodridge, the complaint said.

During this past summer, Kline twice picked the girl up in front of the middle school and took her to the Woodridge home he shared with his grandparents, where he and the girl had unprotected sex, the complaint alleged. Kline also asked the girl to take nude and sexually explicit pictures of herself and e-mail them to him. She did so, using her brother's digital camera, according to the complaint.

The girl's mother found out about the pictures, a counselor at the girl's school suspected she was having an inappropriate sexual relationship with an adult and Cook County Sheriff's police were notified. The girl then gave Sheriff's police investigators consent to assume her online identity. Investigators found two e-mail messages from Kline -- using the e-mail address "twiztid26_78@sbcglobal.net" -- in the girl's inbox, which contained naked images of him, the complaint alleged.

The girl continued on her own, though, to correspond with Kline, sending him pornographic pictures of herself, according to the complaint.

On Oct. 13, investigators spoke with a friend of the girl, also a 14-year-old female, who told them that the girl had been communicating with Kline via computer and her mother's cell phone since the end of the 2005 school year, in addition to having sex with him. One time when she was at the first girl's house, the two began chatting online with Kline, who asked the second girl to take naked pictures of herself and send them to him, the complaint alleged.

The girls took naked pictures of themselves at that time but the first girl deleted them from the camera and her computer. Kline then asked the second girl "if she wanted to engage in a 'three-some' with [him] and victim #1," the complaint said. The second girl told investigators that they had arranged to do so, but that she later decided not to take part. She also told Kline she and the other girl were 15 years old, the complaint said.

On Oct. 24, the first girl was asked to view a lineup, and she positively identified Kline as the man she had had the relationship with, according to the complaint.

Further investigation by agents revealed the e-mail accounts and screen names used to communicate with the girls were registered to Kline, as were two cars at his home that he used when he picked up the first girl at her middle school.

Kline was arrested Tuesday and charged with one count of manufacturing child pornography, which is a felony. If convicted of the charge, Kline faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison.