ALBQUIERQUE (KRQE) - Albuquerque Police said a man who plans events at the New Mexico State Fair was planning something else Thursday night that got him arrested.
They said Damien Lopez-Gaston was cruising Craigslist for teen sex. When they went to bust him in an undercover operation, they ended up arresting a different man who attempted a home invasion at their stakeout location.
A detective posed as a 15 year-old girl on the website on Thursday and said Lopez-Gaston struck up a chat.
"The dialogue that took place during the online conversation made it very clear what his intentions are, or were," said A.P.D. spokesperson Robert Gibbs.
Detectives said his intentions were to meet up a Northeast Heights home for sex with a girl he thought was 15.
Police staged at a decoy home to nab Lopez-Gaston.
As police got ready to for their sting on Lopez-Gaston at the decoy home, another man walked up to the house with a gun. They say he was going to invade the home.
The suspect, Marcos Alberto Ortiz, did not know there as a gang load of cops on the other side of the door.
"Of course he is immediately surprised by what he encounters and he's taken into custody," Officer Gibbs said.
Police quickly threw Ortiz in the house and told him to keep quite so he did not blow the undercover sex sting with Lopez-Gaston.
"During the time they are taking him into custody, their target actually shows up," Gibbs said.
The target, Lopez-Gaston, was then arrested for trying to meet a teen for sex.
As for his status as a manager with the state fair, spokesman Michael Henningsen said he is on paid administrative leave and could be fired.
Lopez-Gaston did not have contact with children in his job duties, according to Henningsen
Lopez-Gaston is charged with child solicitation on the computer and Ortiz faces a felony firearms charge.
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