On Feb. 1, a Facebook Live video accompanied by photos of several lewd text conversations was posted to social media, accusing a Villa Rica man of attempting to molest a 15-year-old boy.
The video shows a man from Alabama confronting the Georgia man, telling him he was going to post his evidence to Facebook in an effort to get him arrested.
“I'm making a promise that you end up in the Carroll County Jail for pedophilia and soliciting a 15-year-old boy,” the Alabama man said. “I will make sure that you face charges."
On Wednesday, his promise came true.
Deputies arrested Brian Anthony Bartlett, 64, on counts of enticing a child for indecent purposes and criminal attempt to commit child molestation, the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. Investigators cited the Alabama man’s video and Facebook post as critical evidence that led to the arrest.
The Alabama man told authorities that he posed as a 15-year-old boy on a social media app and exchanged several messaged with Bartlett. The messages became explicit and described various sexual acts, the release said.
The Facebook post included some of the messages the two allegedly sent each other. The Alabama man claims to be a 15-year-old boy several times in the messages, even asking multiple times whether his age bothers Barlett.
Bartlett allegedly responded, “No nothing bothers me.”
The messages end with Bartlett giving the Alabama man his phone number and address, asking the man, who he thought was underage, to come to his house, the release said.
The Alabama man drove to Bartlett's house off Hitchcock Drive and confronted him while filming the interaction. The video, which has amassed more than 100,000 views, contains explicit language and discusses graphic sexual acts.
During the conversation, Bartlett eventually asked, “What do you want?”
“What I want is for you to tell the truth,” the Alabama man responded. “Why were you trying to meet up with a 15-year-old boy?”
Bartlett replied, “I was fixing to tell him to go home,” while refuting the claim that he was trying to lure or seduce a child. After several attempts to get him to confess, Bartlett eventually said, “I was wrong. That’s all I’m saying,” later adding that the lewd messages “was just (expletive) talk.”
The conversation lasted a few more minutes, which mostly consisted of Bartlett clarifying whether the Alabama man was the person he was conversing with online.
“There are people like you who shouldn’t be walking these streets near a middle school,” the Alabama man said, pointedly. “There’s people out here like you who should not be out here to touch kids in this neighborhood.”
Bartlett was booked into the county’s jail without bond, according to online jail records.
The sheriff’s office is asking for anyone who had contact with Bartlett “and feel they may have been a victim” to call investigators at 770-830-5916.
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