—————————————————— Mom Goes Undercover to Take Down Choir Teacher / Would-Be Facebook Child Predator | Houston News | Houston | Houston Press | The Leading Independent News Source in Houston, Texas

Mom Goes Undercover to Take Down Choir Teacher / Would-Be Facebook Child Predator

A Rio Grande Valley middle school choir teacher was arrested after a mom caught him trying to arrange a sexual encounter with her 12-year-old daughter via Facebook.

According to Valleycentral.com, the mom had allowed her daughter to have a Facebook page on the condition that she have total access to the account. Last week, she noticed a picture-free friend request from a man named "Freddie Love." Under questioning from the mom, posing as her daughter, "Love" claimed to be a 20-year-old student at UT-Brownsville. The mom asked "Love" how he knew her daughter, and he said he did not, but would like to.

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The mom told "Love" that she was only 12, but "Love," who was actually 29-year-old Alfredo Hernandez, a choir teacher at Berta Cabaza Middle School in San Benito, quickly cut to the chase. Age wasn't nothin' but a number to him. He allegedly wanted the girl to sneak out of the house, meet him at a Walmart parking lot and he would take her to his apartment, where she would give him oral sex.

That was when the mom called police, and then she arranged to meet Hernandez at a Harlingen Walmart on Friday.

She threw on a wig and some of her daughter's junior high-style clothes, and with detectives watching from an unmarked car nearby, Hernandez drove up to her at the appointed time.

"I was right by the gas station and he parked two feet away from me," the unidentified woman told Valleycentral.com. "He told me he was Freddie, not to be scared and to get in the car."

And voila, Chris Hansen time.

According to Harlingen police, Hernandez has been charged with online solicitation of a minor, a second-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Bond was set at $50,000. He resigned from his teaching job earlier this week.

"I will do this again if I have to," the mom told Valleycentral. "If it means getting any predator or creep off the street, why not."

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