Cook County Sheriff’s officers arrested a man, Dec. 3, who came to Forest Park because he thought he was going to engage in sexual acts with an 8-year-old girl, Sheriff Tom Dart said in a statement.
Andrew Kozar, 27, of Hanover Park was really communicating online with officers from the Cook County Sheriff’s Child Exploitation Unit in an undercover investigation, the sheriff’s department said.
In November, the Child Exploitation Unit began an investigation into an online advertisement which stated that a man was “looking for someone to allow him to have sex with their niece, sister, young girlfriend/ wife, or daughter, and was open on age,” the sheriff’s department said.
A Child Exploitation Unit officer responded to the ad in an undercover capacity stating that he had an 8-year-old daughter. The man who posted the ad was allegedly identified as Kozar. Police said he communicated with the officer for about a week to set up a meeting in Forest Park to engage in sexual activity with the “daughter.”
When Kozar arrived in Forest Park, sheriff’s police took him into custody.
Kozar was charged with one count of indecent solicitation of a child. Bond was set at the Maywood courthouse for $250,000 with special conditions that he have no Internet access, no phone access, and no contact with minors if he posts bond.
Kozar’s next court date is scheduled for Dec. 26.
In August 2012, the FBI assisted with another underage sex sting in Forest Park. They arrested of a 45-year-old Lansing man who thought he was arranging to meet at the Forest Park Public Library with a 14-year-old girl for sex. The man was arrested by FBI when he arrived in Forest Park.
Sheriff’s spokeswoman Sophia Ansari said Kozar’s Dec. 3 arrest was not at the library, but she declined to identify where in Forest Park he was taken into custody.
