Police: Boulder detective tipped off suspect in online child-luring case
A Boulder police detective warned a child-luring suspect that he was under investigation apparently because he was upset about being left out of the department’s plan to arrest the man, according to court documents released Friday.
Prosecutors said Detective Jack Gardner, 56, was arrested Thursday and faces charges of accessory to Internet luring, official misconduct and obstructing government operations.
Gardner sent the suspect, Kahlil Hill Peckham, 26, an e-mail from his work computer warning him not to meet a 13-year-old girl, who was really a Boulder police officer looking to arrest him, according to the documents. Spooked, Peckham called off the meeting, but he was also arrested Thursday on 20 counts of crimes including sexual exploitation of a child.
Court records don't list attorneys for either man.
Boulder police began investigating Peckham in May after an officer posing as the young girl responded to an online ad he posted, prosecutors said. Peckham allegedly sent more than 700 sexually explicit texts and messages with the girl before arranging to meet her for sex in June.
Boulder police created a plan to arrest Peckham that inadvertently excluded Gardner. On the day of the meeting, police said, Gardner sent Peckham an e-mail from an alias that said "WARNING!!! DO NOT MEET TODAY W/13 YOA GIRL!!" the documents state.
Investigators traced the e-mail to Gardner’s computer, but when pressed, he told them someone else likely sent the message while he was away from his desk, prosecutors said. But fellow detectives told investigators they did not see anyone else near his computer at the time the message was sent.
Gardner, who has been released on bond, has been suspended without pay, Boulder Police Chief Greg Testa said. A phone number for Gardner was not listed.
He is the seventh Boulder police officer to be arrested since 2011, according to the Daily Camera. In August, former Boulder officer Sam Carter was sentenced to four years of probation after being convicted of killing a treasured bull elk in an upscale neighborhood.
This story was originally published September 29, 2014 at 1:36 PM with the headline "Police: Boulder detective tipped off suspect in online child-luring case."