Federal worker faces child porn charges in Placer County

A Transportation Security Administration employee from Northern California is facing federal child pornography charges after an undercover sting allegedly caught him trying to use Craigslist to solicit a sexual rendezvous with a mother and her young daughter.

George Hristovski, a 54-year-old resident of Elverta north of Sacramento, who says on LinkedIn that he joined the TSA in 2008, was arrested Monday after FBI agents raided his home. He faces charges of attempted production of child pornography and attempted enticement of a minor.

According to court records, an undercover investigator with the Placer County Sheriff's Department found an ad in Craigslist's "Casual Encounters" section last month that sought a mother-daughter tandem for sex.

The undercover investigator began corresponding with the poster of the ad, while posing as a 30-year-old woman with a 13-year-old daughter, said a court affidavit written by FBI Special Agent Scott Schofield.

Dozens of messages

Over roughly three weeks, the investigator and the target - who went by the name "Greg" in e-mails - exchanged dozens of messages, initially through the anonymous e-mail service provided by Craigslist, but eventually with an e-mail address directly linked to Hristovski, Schofield alleged.

At one point in the investigation, Hristovski suspected something was amiss, the FBI said, and wrote, "I am trying to weed out cops, men pretending to be women and just want pics and stories."

Hristovski allegedly sent pictures of himself to the agent, who sent pictures back of a Sheriff's Department employee who agreed to pose as "Heather" - the mother - as part of the sting.

At Hristovski's request, the FBI said, agents provided him with another e-mail address, this one supposedly belonging to the 13-year-old daughter, which he then used to solicit sexual information and photographs.

Based on the purported e-mail exchanges, investigators obtained warrants for records held by Craigslist and Yahoo. The records showed that the e-mail used in the exchanges belonged to Hristovski - and had been used to post sexual ads five times between July and October 2009, the FBI affidavit states.

The FBI said the Internet protocol address used to post the ads from 2009 was owned by the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the TSA, and that the picture on Hristovski's LinkedIn profile is the same one sent in exchanges with the undercover agent.

When federal agents searched Hristovski's home, Schofield said, Hristovski explained that if he had "actually received the photographs he would have contacted law enforcement to tell them what the 13-year-old's mother had agreed to let her daughter do."

He called it a fantasy

He denied any intent to engage in sexual acts with the young girl, claiming the e-mails were nothing more than a fantasy, the FBI said.

The TSA has suspended Hristovski indefinitely, and a spokesman said Wednesday the agency was in the process of firing him.

"TSA holds its employees to the highest ethical standards and expects all TSA employees to conduct themselves with integrity and professionalism," said spokesman Ross Feinstein. "These alleged crimes are egregious and intolerable."