Oregon man arrested in sex sting operation

by Ralph Bartholdt Staff Writer
| February 15, 2019 12:00 AM

COEUR d'ALENE — A 36-year-old Oregon man who traveled 365 miles to have a sex with a teenage girl is facing a possible 15-year prison sentence after his arrest Wednesday In Post Falls.

Eric A. Anderson, a safety director from Damascus, Ore., a Portland suburb, was the latest and likely the last suspect to be nabbed by authorities as part of a recent multi-agency sting operation.

Anderson was charged Thursday in First District Magistrate Court with one felony count of using the internet to entice a child under the age of 16 for sex.

At Anderson's first court appearance Thursday, Magistrate James Combo set bond at $250,000. The judge didn't order a public defender because he said Anderson's income was too high.

Police said Anderson answered an ad last weekend on an internet site often used by people looking for sex. Anderson began chatting with a police officer posing as a 15-year-old girl who attended an alternative school in Post Falls.

After several days of exchanging text and email messages, Anderson drove from Portland to Post Falls Wednesday and was arrested at 1:30 p.m. outside a residence authorities pretended was the teenager's home on the 800 block of Riverside Harbor.

Anderson was behind the wheel of a 2013 Ford Transit Van he used for work and sending text messages to the officer posing as the girl when U.S. Marshals made the arrest.

He told police he had left Portland early that morning to meet who he thought was a girl named Leah who he believed was 18, “but may have been younger.”

Anderson will have a preliminary hearing within 14 days.

Five men including three from Spokane, and a Post Falls, and a Rathdrum man were charged Monday with the same felony after answering similar ads posted by police pretending to be 14- or 15-year-old girls as part of a multiagency sting called Operation Lonely Hearts. The sting was conducted by officers of Homeland Security, U.S. Marshals, Post Falls Police and the attorney general's International Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force.