Prosecutor: Michigan man raped 15-year-old girl he met online
ST. JOHNS — Jared Andrew Fox was charged in February with raping a 15-year-old girl he met online, Clinton County Prosecuting Attorney Charles Sherman said.
The 24-year-old St. Johns man was arrested again on Friday and is now facing child pornography charges.
Fox had been posing as a 14-year-old boy on the website meetme.com and "was engaging young girls in sexually suggestive conversations," Sherman said in an email.
In October, he said, "one girl in Meridian Township agreed to let him come to her house and he raped her."
Fox faces five counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct and two other charges in that case, which is in Ingham County Circuit Court.
- Related: Ex-journalism teacher at CMU charged with child porn crime
- Related: Waffle House waitress discovers child porn on phone left behind
After he was arrested for the alleged sexual assault, Meridian Township police obtained search warrants of Fox's car and home, Sherman said, and the electronics devices were analyzed by the Michigan State University Police Department Digital Forensic and Cyber Crime Unit.
Police found that computers, cell phones, tablets, discs and hard drives belonging to Fox contained images and video of child pornography, Sherman said.
"Fox has been engaged in large scale distribution of child pornography," he said in the email. "He has been engaged in a minimum of sending or receiving 383 images and videos of children, some under 5 years old being sexually assaulted by adults and/or other children."
Police also located more than 600 pages of conversations in which Fox pretended to be a 14-year-old boy and "attempted to convince young girls to engage in sexual activity with him," Sherman said.
Because Fox lives in St. Johns and had the child pornography in his home, the Clinton County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office has jurisdiction. Fox faces charges of distributing or promoting child abusive commercial activity, possession of child sexual abusive material and using computers to commit a crime in that case.
Fox, who was out on bond in the sexual assault case, was arrested Friday by the Clinton County Sheriff's Office. He was arraigned Monday in Clinton County, Sherman said, and his bond was set at $100,000. He faces up to seven years in prison if convicted in that case.
He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted in Ingham County, where he's charged with five counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct, assault with intent to commit sexual penetration and accosting a child for immoral purposes.
Ingham County Chief Prosecuting Attorney Lisa McCormick declined to comment on Fox's case, but said the broader issue is one the public needs to be aware of.
"I think that, as parents, we have to be more attuned to the types of websites that children are using today because we don’t know necessarily who they are communicating with on the web," she said. "And you can't trust people to be honest about who they are. And as parents we have to be vigilant."
A messages was left seeking comment from Fox's attorney, Mike Hocking.
Contact Matt Mencarini at (517) 267-1347 or mmencarini@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattMencarini.
What's next
Jared Fox, 24, of St. Johns, is facing sexual assault charges in Ingham County and child pornography charges in Clinton County.
A preliminary hearing, which will determine if there's enough evidence for Fox to stand trial, is set for June 9 in 65A District Court in St. Johns. Fox's next hearing on the Ingham County case is set for June 8 in Veterans Memorial Courthouse in downtown Lansing.