A Deering mother and daughter finally have a chance for closure after their close call last fall with a potential Internet predator.

Teresa Mossman will accompany her 12-year-old daughter to the Butler County Common Pleas Court next month to testify against a registered sex offender they say made contact with the young girl through Facebook.

Aaron M. Frye, 28, of Hamilton, was arrested on Sept. 28 and charged with failure to provide the Butler County Sheriff’s Office with an e-mail address. That unregistered e-mail address was allegedly used to contact young girls, including Mossman’s daughter, said Jennifer McElfresh, assistant prosecuting attorney for Butler County.

McElfresh, who is in the child assault division of the Butler County Prosecutor’s Office, said Frye had been charged with various offenses involving young girls in 2003.

According to Butler County Common Pleas Court records, Frye pleaded guilty to a bill of information and was convicted of two counts of gross sexual imposition, a third-degree felony, and two counts of importuning, a fifth-degree felony. He was sentenced to three years in prison.

“He had been classified as a sexual predator so he’s required to register certain information with the sheriff and verify information every 90 days for the rest of his life,” said McElfresh.

Mossman and her daughter were not aware of Frye’s past when he contacted the Dawson-Bryant Middle School student, but they were concerned right away and alerted authorities.

Mossman said her daughter received 10 to 12 private messages via Facebook from Frye on Aug. 31 asking where she lived, what school she attended and if they could be friends. Mossman said that even though her daughter did not accept Frye’s friend request, he still had access to her list of friends. She also said that one message asked her daughter to call him and gave a phone number.

Mossman learned that her oldest daughter, who lives in Cincinnati, accepted Frye’s friend request at some point, even though she did not know who he was. This gave him access to her complete list of friends, including her younger sister back in Deering.

She filed a police report with the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office on Sept. 1 and also contacted her daughter’s school. Mossman said one of her daughter’s friends was also contacted by Frye through a private Facebook message.

No charges were filed at that time, but Sheriff Jeff Lawless said he alerted authorities in Butler County.

The Hamilton Police Department was already on the case. According to McElfresh, a complaint was filed against Frye when another mother in Hamilton was told by her own daughter that an older man had been making contact with her. An investigation was started and it was revealed that Frye was using an unregistered e-mail address.

Since Frye is considered a sexual predator, if convicted, he could face 1 to 5 years in prison or community controlled probation. He has been in jail since Sept. 28 and is awaiting the trial on Feb. 2. Frye’s attorney filed a motion to dismiss the case based on the constitutionality of the statute with which he is charged, but was overruled by a judge on Friday.

Mossman said she hopes he gets the maximum penalty for his crime.

“The more people we get off the streets that endanger our children and scare them, the better off we are,” she said.

Mossman also said her daughter is scared to face Frye during the trial, but said she is trying to emphasize the importance of her testimony.

“We’ve got to let these kids know that they have the right to speak out and not be afraid to point at the people that try to hurt them,” she said. “They have a right to say, ‘That’s the person, this is what they said, this is what they did.’”

McElfresh said two other juveniles from Hamilton would be in court to testify as well, along with law enforcement officers.

“I think this young lady, as well as the others, really have a tremendous amount of courage to come forward and being cooperative with the police,” McElfresh said. “The job that they are doing by coming to court and facing the defendant and telling the truth about what happened is really an important one because this defendant has demonstrated that he is a person that is likely to engage in inappropriate, criminal behavior. Because these young ladies have the courage they do, hopefully that behavior will stop.”

McElfresh said this is the first time anyone would be prosecuted in Butler County for not registering an e-mail address.

Mossman said she has taken steps to make sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen again.

“I went in and changed our privacy settings on Facebook,” she said. “My oldest daughter, in Cincinnati, deleted him as a friend.” She said she made sure only friends can see their personal information and friends lists.

It is a lesson learned for the Mossmans, but they said there is also a chance for a happy ending to the case if Frye is found guilty.

“I wish my child didn’t have to go through this,” Mossman said. “But I am going to do whatever we can to make certain that this guy can’t hurt anybody.”