Collier man arrested in Boynton Beach, charged with soliciting a minor

A 50-year-old Collier County man was arrested last weekend in Boynton Beach and charged with soliciting a minor for sex on the Internet.

Peter Messires, whose exact address in Naples was not available, was charged with using an online service to solicit a child to commit a lewd and lascivious act.

An undercover officer posed as a 15-year-old boy Messires was going to meet in Boynton Beach, investigators say.

Messires had contacted the boy — the police officer– in a chat room where the undercover officer from Boynton Beach was and made arrangements to travel from Naples to meet the teen-ager and then go to a hotel to have sex Saturday, according to Detective Toby Athol. They’d been chatting online for about two weeks, he said.

Messires is employed by the David Lawrence Center in Naples as a behavior technician and has been suspended without pay since his arrest. Center officials say he had passed local, state and FBI background checks before his employment.

Athol said he learned that Messires had once lived in Chicago before he came to Naples and was an Eastern Orthodox priest.