Man Accused Of Luring Mass. Teen To Charlotte Over The Internet

Authorities say an Internet relationship between a man and a 15-year-old girl ended at a home in Charlotte over the weekend.

Police say Kareem Kirk, 34, lured the girl to a small duplex on East Seventh Street – hundreds of miles from her home in Springfield, Mass. They say he told the child he is Muslim and wanted to make her his second wife.

Accord to a police search warrant, Kirk had been in touch with the girl over the Internet for two years, and their online relationship had led to her e-mailing him nude pictures of herself in sexually suggestive positions.

Then the teen’s family reported her missing on July 3. Charlotte-Mecklenburg police tracked her down at the duplex late Saturday.

Kirk is being held at the Mecklenburg County jail on $125,000 bond.

The accusations have Kirk’s wife and four children, who live at a home in north Charlotte, baffled. Police went to the house on Sunday and seized letters and a laptop computer that could be the key to tracking alleged Internet connection.

“People who are victimizing children or want to find children, that’s the place that they go,” said Det. Aleta Dunbar of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.

Dunbar couldn’t talk about the specifics of the case, but she says it should be a warning to parents.

“We’re seeing every year there’s been an increase. So it’s significant for us to be concerned about it and parents need to be concerned about it,” she said.

Experts say parents need to educate their children and themselves to lessen the chances of their children becoming victims of online predators. Ask your children to show you places they go online, learn chat room lingo, check blocking and filtering applications and don’t post your child’s e-mail address in any directory.