An Athens man has been arrested for the second time in less than two months after allegedly trying to communicate with someone he thought was a 13-year-old girl online, according to Cherokee County authorities.
James Wesley Smith, 21, was arrested in Clarke County on Monday, according to Cherokee sheriff’s office spokesman Capt. Jay Baker.
Smith was out on bond when he was taken into custody. He had been arrested Sept. 29 after engaging in conversation with an undercover investigator whom he believed to be a teenage girl, Baker said.
Smith was charged with two counts of obscene internet contact with a child, electronically furnishing obscene material to a minor and sexual exploitation of children in connection with that investigation. He was booked into the Cherokee County Adult Detention Center and released on bond Oct. 17, Baker said.
“Despite the fact that one of his conditions of bond was ‘shall have no internet access,’ he started communicating within three weeks of his release with a Cherokee Sheriff’s Investigator who he believed was the same girl he had been communicating with in September,” Baker said.
Smith was charged with two more counts of obscene internet contact with a child after the latest investigation.
He is being held in the Clarke County jail but is scheduled to be transported to Cherokee County.
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