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A Hennepin County sheriff's deputy attempted to have sex with a 16-year-old girl in western Wisconsin last month, according to a criminal complaint filed Monday.

Deputy Jeffrey Masek, 60, was arrested in Rice Lake, WIs., Sunday night and subsequently placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation.

He is charged with second-degree attempted sexual assault of a child under 16, child enticement and using a computer to facilitate a child sex crime.

According to the complaint, on March 21 a Rice Lake police officer initiated an undercover investigation where she placed an ad on a website for people looking for sexual relationship. She posed as a 16-year-old girl and said she was inexperienced and was looking for experienced. Masek responded to the ad one day later, on March 22.

The police officer responded, asking Masek if it was okay that she was younger. Masek replied, “younger is fine, hope you don’t mind the older father type.” He also said he had “plenty of pics and also some vids to equally share.”

At one point, Masek sent the undercover officer nude photos of himself.


Masek and the undercover officer exchanged phone numbers. Over the next month, they exchanged more than 500 text messages, many of which included sexual content. Masek repeatedly told the undercover officer that he would help her “get experience.”

The two arranged to meet in Rice Lake on April 28. Police officers saw a car matching the description Masek had provided pull into the Cedar Mall parking lot. The undercover officer then received a text message from Masek stating,” I’m here.”

Officers arrested Masek. While he was being taken into custody, Masek said several times, “this is the worst day of my life.”

Masek admitted to exchanging text messages containing sexual content with the undercover officer. He told police the only reason he showed up was that he thought she would “find someone else and be preyed upon and that he would be reading about a dead body,” the charges say.

Masek also admitted he had been talking to a possible 12-year-old at one point, but had stopped the conversation because he believed it was a sting operation.