Hickory man admits to soliciting teen online for nude photos
A Hickory man was sentenced this week to at least a year and seven months in prison for soliciting a Burke County teenager online for nude photos.
Ralph Arnold Phillips, 34, admitted to soliciting a 15-year-old Draughn High School student for the photos in August 2015, prosecutors said. The school is in Valdese.
The student told her principal, who contacted the Burke County Sheriff’s Office.
A sheriff’s detective assumed the girl’s online identity and arranged a meeting at a Hickory fast food restaurant with Phillips for sex acts. Several sheriff’s detectives met Phillips at the restaurant.
“I’m not here to meet a girl,” Phillips told the detectives, according to a news release from the Burke County District Attorney’s Office. “I was going to tell her that this isn’t a good idea for us to meet.”
Joe Marusak: 704-358-5067, @jmarusak
This story was originally published March 4, 2016 at 10:08 AM with the headline "Hickory man admits to soliciting teen online for nude photos."