An employee with Texas Child Protective Services is one of 20 accused of online solicitation of a minor, authorities say.
Adrian Martinez, 44, was nabbed in an undercover operation in which officers posed as children online, police said.
Martinez remained in the Tarrant County Jail Friday.
“As soon as we became aware of the arrest of Adrian Martinez he was removed from caseworker duties and placed on administrative leave,” a CPS statement said. “We are cooperating fully with law enforcement.”
Martinez is CPS conservatorship caseworker and joined the agency in May 2016.
Conservatorship caseworkers monitor the care of children who are in state custody.
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"I shouldn't be shocked at things but I do get shocked and surprised at the people who come in and the professions they represent," said Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn who formed the human trafficking task force. "It's scary and it's very troubling at times that we have these folks out there who are child predators."
Waybourn said Martinez believed he was chatting with a 14-year-old boy.
Bottom Row (L-R): Earnest Lee Maxwell, 53; Eliecer Aguayo Salgado, 29; Troy Palmer Stallsworth, 25; Adrian Martinez, 44; Leonardo Lopez-Castillo, 29; Luis Miguel Hernandez, 33; Ronald Leroy Moore, 71
Martinez was one of 20 people charged in an online sting earlier this week in an operation conducted by the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office, Fort Worth Police, the Tarrant County Constable Precinct 2, and Texas DPS.
Fourteen of the 20 charged have been arrested. warrants are being issued for the other six.
The operation focused on people who believed they were chatting online with children with the intent of meeting them for sex, police said.
