A Trimble county man is behind bars tonight in Louisville after Metro Police arrested him at a local bowling alley this afternoon.

They say he tried to arrange a sexual encounter with someone he thought was a 14-year-old girl.

Louisville Metro Police made this arrest after a series of online chats with the suspect.

The act of sexual predators luring kids into chat rooms is probably something you’ve heard of plenty of times before.

Detectives say that online predators are getting more and more creative.

Detective Dan Jackman began an undercover sting operation online in mid November.

Jackman says he posed as a 14-year-old girl and had numerous chat room conversations with 38-year-old William Lee Hart.  Hart wanted to meet offline.

Hart then proceeded to set up a date for us to meet and have sex. 

"Hart thought I was a 14 year old child; a 14 year old girl" said Detective Jackman.

That date was today, and Louisville Metropolitan Police arrested Hart at Fern Bowl bowling alley on Bardstown road.

Police say the method Hart used to strike up a conversation with an alleged minor is a common one-a chat room.  But even if your child isn’t chatting online, profiles on sites like Myspace.com are still dangerous.

People think if they set their profile to private, nobody can see or get their information but they’re absolutely wrong.

With a simple Google search we turned up hundreds of sites dedicated to hacking into people’s Myspace and Facebook accounts.

Another danger could rest in a simple picture of your child.

Computer savvy predators crop the face and paste it onto the body of a pornographic image and then blending skin tones to make it look realistic. Then they send the picture back to the child with a threat.

“I am gonna show this to your friends, your family, your preacher if you don’t do this or that”. They use those images to blackmail the kids to do something else Jackman says.

Detective Jackman says nationally “the statistics are frightening.”

Whether it’s through Internet contact or another way, one of every three girls will be sexually victimized before the age of 18 and for boys it’s one out of four.