BRIEF: College Official Held in Child Solicitation

By Chicago Tribune

Aug. 4–LAKE COUNTY — A South Suburban College official was arrested Friday morning near Grayslake after he allegedly solicited a Lake County sheriff’s sergeant pretending to be a teenager.

Bruce Smith, 58, of the first block of Golf View Lane in Frankfort, was arrested after driving to Lake County to meet a 15-year-old boy, Sheriff Mark Curran said. Smith, executive director of information technology at the South Holland community college, and Sgt. Timothy Jonites, who posed as the teen, communicated for four months over the Internet and discussed sex, Jonites said.

Smith was charged with indecent solicitation of a child and is being held in the Lake County Jail in lieu of $350,000 bail.

South Suburban College is closed Fridays during the summer and officials were not available for comment.

—–

To see more of the Chicago Tribune, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.chicagotribune.com.

Copyright (c) 2007, Chicago Tribune

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.