Focus on the Family narrator arrested for luring teenage girl for sex on Net

(Photo/rosefirerising, Flickr)
(Photo/rosefirerising, Flickr)

A Colorado Springs man who narrates the Bible in Spanish on CDs and works in the Spanish broadcasting department of Focus on the Family appeared in court Monday in Golden on two felony counts of using the Internet to lure a 15-year-old girl for sex, The Denver Post reports.

 Juan Alberto Ovalle, 42, was arrested Friday when he drove to Lakewood to meet the girl — who turned out to be an undercover officer — after discussing various sexual acts he wanted to perform with her, the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office said.

Ovalle, a native of the Dominican Republic, is listed as the “Voice Narrator/Artist” of the Spanish Reina Valera Biblia, available on 64 CDs, and can be heard here discussing an upcoming Focus on the Family conference with directors of the evangelical empire’s outreach to the Spanish-speaking community.

 Listen here to Ovalle reading various admonitions against unlawful fornication from 1 Corintios (Corinthians).

Juan Alberto Ovalle in his booking photo on charges of Internet luring. (Photo/1st Judicial District Attorney)
Juan Alberto Ovalle in his booking photo on charges of Internet luring. (Photo/1st Judicial District Attorney)

Ovalle “came to know the Lord at the age of 14,” according to a Web site offering his Spanish Bible narration for sale, and founded Spanish Christian Audio in 2001 to “help Christian organizations with their audio needs.”

After first encountering the officer who was posing as a 15-year-old girl on the Internet last week, Orvalle made “sexually graphic statements in a chat room to a person he believed to be an underage teen,” the district attorney’s office said in a release. When the undercover officer said her mom wouldn’t be home the next day, Orvalle said he was “horny” and made arrangements to come to her house, according to an arrest affidavit.

Read the details provided in the Juan Alberto Ovalle arrest affidavit here.

Jefferson County District Attorney Scott Storey touts the arrests, since 2005, of more than 235 adults for attempting to meet children and teens for sex. The arrests are part of an ongoing sting operation funded in part by private grants to a nonprofit to fund the Child Sex Offender Internet Investigations Unit. In addition to investigations, the program pays for Cheezo, a 5-foot-tall “fuzzy yellow lion mascot,” who travels to schools to warn children about the dangers of Internet luring.

Ovalle appeared in court Monday on two felony charges — criminal attempted sexual assault on a child and Internet luring of a child –and is set to be formally charged Thursday morning, said Pam Russell, spokesperson for the district attorney’s office. His bond was set at $25,000 and he remained in custody Monday afternoon, she said.

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