Arrest of Garrett Allan Baker
 In 2008, an 11 year old girl in California attended the El Camino Pines Lutheran Church summer-camp in Camarillo. One of the girls' camp counselors was Garrett Allan Baker, age 20. After the camp ended the two began a series of Internet communications on Facebook then text communications with one another via cell phones. In fall 2009, Baker moved to Arizona and sometimes afterwards the text communications with the girl in California continued. Some of the text conversations included intimate personal communications of a sexual nature. The girls" father became suspicious of the communications and used phone monitoring software that captured the texting between his daughter and Baker.
In December 2009 the girls’ father alerted the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s (NCMEC) Cybertip Line. NCMEC then alerted the Los Angeles Police Department ICAC Unit. The communications between the California girl and Baker in Arizona were suspicious and inappropriate but did not yet rise to the level of a criminal offense. The LAPD ICAC then notified the Arizona ICAC and the information, along with the girl’s phone, were turned over to AZ ICAC investigators for follow-up.
In January 2009 an AZ ICAC undercover detective assumed the identity of the girl and over the course of two weeks the suspect escalated the text communications to include an invitation to meet the girl for sexual contact. A meeting was arranged whereby Baker believed that he would be taking the girl to his Phoenix apartment for sexual contact on February 10, 2010. The meeting was planned at 0900 hours at the Arizona Mills Mall in Tempe Arizona. Baker was met there by undercover detectives of the Phoenix Police Department assigned to the Arizona ICAC Task Force and a detective from the Tempe PD.
Baker was taken into custody without incident. He made admissions about the offense and also made admissions about other possible offenses that detectives are still investigating.
Baker is employed as a caregiver by Transitions for the Developmentally Disabled in Phoenix. There is no information at this time that Baker committed any offenses there.
Search warrants were served on his vehicle and at his Phoenix residence and evidence was seized. Baker was booked into the Maricopa County Jail charged with one count of luring a minor for sexual exploitation. The case will be submitted to the Maricopa County Attorneys Office for charging.
The name of the 11 year old California girl who was the intended victim is withheld.
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