Crime & Safety
Police: Arrest in Child Solicitation Sting
Month-long investigation ends when man travels to meet minor, according to Leesburg Police Department.
Leesburg Police Department has arrested an Alexandria man who travelled to the Loudoun area town to meet who he believed to be a minor he'd met online, according to a Leesburg Police Department release. He had actually been communicating with a police officer pretending to be a minor.
Nicholas Joseph Coletto, 68, of Alexandria, was charged with use of a communications system to contact a minor, which is a Class 5 Felony.
On Feb. 25, the Leesburg Police Department’s Criminal Investigations Section began an investigation into inappropriate electronic communications from a man to a Leesburg Police Detective posing as a juvenile.
"Over the next several weeks, through back and forth electronic communications, the suspect began to make several inquiries that were of a sexual nature," according to the police statement.
On March 24, Coletto agreed to meet with the “juvenile” he was having the conversations with. At the designated meeting location, the suspect was detained and subsequently arrested, according to police.
Coletto was ordered held without bond at the Loudoun County Adult Detention Center.
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