HOUSTON – An athletic coach with the Lasara Independent School District has been arrested for allegedly making plans to meet up with a 15-year-old girl who turned out to be a Harris County Precinct 1 deputy constable.
Miguel Angel Carlos, a 46-year-old man from the Rio Grande Valley, was arrested just after 11 a.m. in Harlingen, Texas. He was charged with two counts of online solicitation of a minor.
Investigators said for several months, Carlos was engaged in online conversations with who he thought was the15-year-old girl but he was actually talking with an undercover deputy and was making plans to meet up with the minor in Houston.
Carlos is a girls basketball and girls track coach for a school of kindergarten through 12th-grade students, authorities said.
The married father of two also works as a technology specialist for the school district of about 350 students, Superintendent Alejos Salazar told KPRC 2 News.
A judge set Carlos’ initial bond at $500,000 -- $250,000 for each charge. He was transported to the Harris County jail, where he was booked on Thursday night.
“This should scare parents. This should put things into perspective about how dangerous things can be when you’re not paying attention,” Constable Alan Rosen said last month after the arrest of the former Itasca ISD superintendent for a similar alleged crime.
Precinct 1 investigators are trained members of the Internet Crime Against Children Task Force.
“Parents need to have a relationship with their teenage kids. They need to be communicating with them on a constant basis so that they can figure out what’s going on,” Dr. Bob Sanborn, president of Children at Risk said. “If your teen is sort of a little self-absorbed, maybe low self-esteem, doesn’t have a lot of friends, those are sort of early warning items for a parent to understand what’s going on.”
Superintendent Salazar has not answered questions about whether Carlos is still employed by the school district. This is the message he sent to families Thursday afternoon following the arrest: