By Greg Forester, Staff Writer
PLAINSBORO — A Plainsboro man was arrested July 10 and charged with numerous sex crimes for maintaining a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old Westfield girl he met on the Web, police said.
Westfield police charged Derek McDonough, 28, of Bradford Lane with sexual assault, luring and enticing a child, endangering the welfare of a child and criminal sexual contact.
Mr. McDonough met the girl over the social networking Web site MySpace about six months ago and began communicating regularly with the girl, according to Capt. Cliff Auchter.
Soon the two arranged to meet somewhere near Westfield and engaged in sexual activity, Capt. Auchter said.
They continued to meet in the months leading up to Mr. McDonough’s July 10 arrest, with most of the illegal activity going on at scattered locations near the girl’s Westfield home, police said.
Sometime that week, the girl’s parents noticed some suspicious activity on the family computer the girl had used to contact Mr. McDonough, police said.
They contacted police, who interviewed the victim and pieced together what had been going on between the girl and Mr. McDonough during the previous six months, according to police.
That information was used as probable, according to Capt. Auchter, who said Westfield police then went to Plainsboro Township to take Mr. McDonough into custody.
Mr. McDonough is being on $150,000 bail in the Union County jail in Elizabeth.
