Focus employee accused of trying to lure a minor for sex

A Focus on the Family employee was jailed in Jefferson County after being arrested in Lakewood on suspicion of arranging to have sex with an underage girl.

Juan Alberto Ovalle, 42, started chatting online Thursday with someone he thought was a girl under the age of 15 but was actually an undercover police officer, according to the arrest affidavit filed with the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office.

The next day, police said, Ovalle used graphic language online and in phone calls to solicit sex with the person he thought was an underage teen. When he attempted a rendezvous with the girl in Lakewood on Friday, he was arrested, police said.

Ovalle, who lives in Colorado Springs, is scheduled to be formally charged Thursday with two felony counts of criminal attempt of sexual assault on a minor and Internet luring of a child. He was being held in the Jefferson County Detention Center in Golden on a $25,000 bond.

Ovalle works as a Spanish producer at Focus, translating radio broadcasts and other Focus content for Spanish-speaking audiences, said Focus spokesman Gary Schneeberger.

Schneeberger said Ovalle also has his own business translating Christian materials into Spanish, and he's the voice of the Spanish Reina Valera Bible, an audio book published by Whitaker House.

A brief biography of Ovalle on the Web site of Audio Bible, which sells the Reina Valera Bible, says he is a native of the Dominican Republic who was saved when he was 14 and has served as a pastor in the United States and Latin America since age 19.

Schneeberger couldn't say whether Focus will take action regarding Ovalle's employment.

"We are all shocked to hear of these allegations and just beginning to look into them," Schneeberger said Monday.

Ovalle has been a Focus employee since May 2003.

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