Man charged in Internet sex crimes investigation

COLUMBIA — A coalition of law enforcement agencies focused on Internet crime netted another arrest Tuesday morning, as the Crane Police Department arrested a 44-year-old man on an outstanding warrant for two counts of sexual misconduct involving a child.  

As part of an investigation into the exploitation of children over the Internet, two detectives with the Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force were posing online as 13- and 14-year-old girls, the release said.

On Aug. 28, the suspect, Robert Gene Schone, allegedly contacted one of the detectives in an Internet chat room and repeatedly exposed himself to the detective over a webcam. A short time later that night, the suspect allegedly contacted the other detective posing as a child and exposed his genitals on a webcam, the release said.

The Internet communications were eventually traced to the suspect, who was living near Pomme de Terre Lake, according to the release. On Oct. 10, the Boone County Circuit Court issued an arrest warrant for the suspect.

Schone was convicted in 1988 of the sexual assault of an 11-year-old girl, but was not on the Missouri sexual offender registration list because the crime took place before 1995, when the registration law took effect, the release said.