A senior sheriff's department commander in metro Atlanta was arrested on Tuesday after allegedly gay sexting with an undercover police officer he thought was an underage teen.
David McCart, 53, was charged with electronic pornography and child exploitation after a two-month investigation by DeKalb police and the FBI. Shortly after his arrest became public on Wednesday, Henry County Sheriff Keith McBrayer fired McCart, who was a captain in the department and once served as chief deputy, the agency's second highest-ranking commander.
McCart's arrest, which was first reported by WSB, came after a police investigator posing as a 14-year-old male met McCart on a social media hook-up site and their conversations eventually turned to sex. When McCart went to meet the undercover office on Tuesday at a metro Atlanta mall, he was arrested.
“We were doing a cross-country operation with the FBI and during that time we came into contact with an individual later identified as Captain McCart,” DeKalb County police Sgt. Torrey Kennedy told Channel 2. “Mr. McCart was on a social media website chatting with who he believed was an underage child. During that chat, they had a sexual, explicit conversation in which they agreed to meet for sex.”
But reports by WSB and the AJC indicate that McCart chatted online with the teen. In fact, he was communicating with a detective posing as the teen, Capt. Stephen Fore, a DeKalb police spokesperson, told Project Q Atlanta.
Police declined to say what social media outlet or app McCart and the undercover detective chatted on.
Investigators seized computers and cell phones from McCart's home, according to CBS 46. On Thursday, McCart was granted a $25,000 bond but remained in the DeKalb County Jail. He was ordered to have no contact with anyone under 17 and to access the Internet only with supervision.
In 2010 McCart, then chief deputy for the Henry County Sheriff's Office, publicly discussed the case of a sheriff's deputy charged with having sex with a 15-year-old female. That deputy was also fired.
“It's hard to find the right words,” said Sheriff's Chief Deputy David McCart. “We're hurt, we're sad, we're embarrassed. I would assume that most people who had ever met Carl or knew Carl, are in shock.”
McCart's arrest is at least the second recent case in DeKalb of a man being arrested for a sexual relationship with an underage male. In July, Decatur architect William Matthew Simmons was charged with aggravated child molestation after a months-long sexual relationship with a 15-year-old male. A tip led police to Simmons and details of the alleged relationship.
In 2013, the Georgia Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a police officer in southeast Georgia fired and jailed for offering gay blowies to a teenager in his grandmother's house. The court's decision also spelled out how to legally solicit sodomy.
