Choate (photo courtesy of TBI)
TENNESSEE — A Tennessee man near Nashville was arrested Tuesday in an undercover child solicitation operation for allegedly contacting an agent, whom he thought was an underage girl, state authorities say.
Keith Taualii Choate, a 20-year-old from Ashland City, was identified as a suspect in a sting conducted by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and the FBI.
The Cheatham County man was charged with soliciting a minor. Ashland City is about 25 miles northwest of the Music City, which is also Tennessee’s state capital.
The investigation began last summer when agents say they identified someone trying to contact an undercover law enforcement officer pretending to be a 14-year-old female as part of the sting operation.
The male subject, later identified by agents as Choate, allegedly sent “sexually explicit messages and photographs” to the person he thought was a minor female and asked for “explicit” photos of “her” in return, a TBI news release says.
Choate was arrested Tuesday in Williamson County on charges of solicitation of a minor and soliciting sexual exploitation of a minor by electronic means.
The Ashland Police Department and the Cheatham County Sheriff’s Office assisted TBI ICAC agents with Choate’s arrest, and he was booked into the Cheatham County Jail on a $50,000 bond.
