Deputies: Man used Minecraft to prey on 12-year-old

Staff report

BERLIN CENTER

A California man in his 50s is suspected of preying on a 12-year-old Berlin Township girl through the video game Minecraft.

The man asked the girl to call his number and he spoke with her for about 15 minutes Friday night. He said he “would love to see a picture” of her and asked if she had a boyfriend or if she “wanted to have sex with him in the future,” reads a Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office report.

The girl told deputies she met the man while playing the popular online video game and called him on the home’s landline phone. Her mother reportedly listened in and heard “a man’s voice” which was “lower in pitch” than a juvenile’s.

“I said to the gentleman, ‘Don’t you ever talk to my [expletive] 12-year-old daughter and never call this number again,’” the girl’s mother later told police. “He said ‘OK’ and hung up.”

Though the man later claimed to be 13 years old, a social media search of the phone number led to an about 50-year-old man living in Salinas, Calif. When deputies contacted that person, they said they lived in Dallas.

The girl later blocked the man from contacting her in the game, according to the report. The school resource officer at the girl’s school also was informed of the incident, the report states.

The suspect could be charged with a felony count of importuning, the report states.