Tulsa Man Arrested In Online Sex Sting

By Jeffrey Smith, The News On 6

CARTHAGE, MO -- A Tulsa man was arrested in Missouri after police say he was trying to meet a 13-year-old girl for sex.

Robert Graef, 29, traveled 130 miles to Carthage, Mo., on Friday afternoon and thought he was going to meet and have sex with the girl, police say.

Officers with the Jasper County Sheriff's Department had been posing as the girl as part of the Internet Crimes Task Force.

When Graef arrived at the meeting place, a cemetery, he was met by deputies and arrested. But what the man brought along with him was particularly disturbing.

"We're really worried about where this would have gone if this had been a real 13-year-old girl versus an undercover police officer," said Sgt. Tim Stadler with Tulsa's Cybercrimes Unit.

Deputies discovered Graef brought a roll of duct tape and a loaded pistol.

"Just by common sense, a person going for a meeting with a 13-year-old having a gun and duct tape, you can come to only one conclusion in what was going to go on with that," Stadler said.

Tulsa Police served a search warrant on Graef's south Tulsa home and took a digital camera, three computer hard drives and an external hard drive. The Cybercrimes Unit will analyze the evidence next week.

Graef does not have a history of sex crimes or child endangerment. His only other run-in with the law was for a traffic violation in 2003.

"It would take a psychologist to tell us why someone goes from no record to meeting somebody who they think is a 13-year-old girl with a loaded Glock and duct tape," Stadler said.

Graef is being held at the Jasper County, Mo., jail on a complaint of enticement of a child, a felony that carries a maximum sentence of 30 years.