SANTA ANA, Calif.—A veteran Santa Ana police detective who was allegedly caught up in a sting operation was charged Aug. 2 with child annoyance.
Gregory Daniel Beaumarchais, 43, was charged with one misdemeanor count of annoying or molesting a person believed to be a child. He is scheduled to be arraigned Oct. 13.
He is accused of sending “graphic messages” to an investigator pretending to be a 14-year-old girl, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
The decoy investigator alerted the Orange County Crime Stoppers organization about the allegedly inappropriate messages from a man claiming to be a 45-year-old police officer, prosecutors said. The messages were sent between December and January….