Lankan man charged for attempt on minor

A Sri Lankan in Florida in the US has been charged with attempting to have sex with an underage girl,?floridatoday.com reported.

The?23-year-old man traveled by taxi to Starbucks on Palm Bay Road in hopes of having a sexual encounter with an underage girl he met via Craigslist, said Yvonne Martinez, Palm Bay police spokeswoman.

Instead, police officers arrested him: The “girl” he had been repeatedly emailing and texting was an undercover detective with the department’s Special Victims Unit.

Shabeeb Ahamed Mohamed Shaheed, 22, of Sri Lanka was charged with one count of traveling to meet a minor, one count of use of computer for solicitation of a minor, and one count of attempted lewd or lascivious battery.

Shaheed remains incarcerated at the Brevard County Jail Complex, and his bond was set at $85,000.

“Mr. Shaheed thought he was talking to a girl under the age of 16 and in his communications with her he validated several times that he knew her age,” Det. Ursula Cowan stated in a press release.

“He was very specific with what he wanted to do with her, and based on the evidence we gathered we were able to support probable cause for these charges,” Cowan stated.