(CBS DETROIT) – A Westland sex offender is accused of sending explicit images online to a minor in Florida and trying to persuade her to have sex with him.
According to a criminal complaint filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Tampa police notified Michigan State Police in October 2023 of a Michigan IP address that was sending photos to a minor. Police found about eleven nude photos of a person, including one with his face.
Investigation revealed that there was a conversation between the suspect, later identified as Ronald Neil Check, and the minor in May 2023. In one of the messages, Check claimed to be 13 years old and offered money for sex. According to the complaint, they also had contact via video chat, during which the minor told him to stop.
The complaint shows that at the end of the chat, the child’s mother intervened and demanded that Check stop contacting the minor. However, he refused and even said, “…let me talk to her now.” He also tried to make video calls fourteen times.
Investigators linked the IP address to a home in Westland, where a woman said Check lived in a tent in her backyard and had access to her Internet password. Police learned that Check had previously been convicted of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree and was registered as a sex offender.
Records show Check was in the Wayne County Jail awaiting charges at the time of the investigation in October 2023. When he contacted the minor in May, he was not in police custody.
Police executed a search warrant and recovered eight phones, four of which contained more than a hundred photos and videos containing child pornography. According to the complaint, Check allegedly created a new username in an attempt to reconnect with the minor.
The complaint called for an arrest warrant for Check for possession of child pornography, sexual exploitation of a minor, coercion and enticement of a minor, violating his sex offender registry and sending obscene material to a minor.
