Special Agents from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation have arrested and charged a Putnam County man accused of attempting to solicit a minor for the purpose of illicit sex.

Agents received information from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that a man, identified as 53-year-old Phillip Carlen Loftis engaged in online conversation with an undercover GBI Agent, who was posing as a 13-year-old female. During the exchange, Loftis engaged in conversation of a sexual nature and exposed himself in transmitted photographs.

Yesterday, authorities arrested Loftis and charged him with one count of sexual exploitation of a minor by electronic means and one count of solicitation of a minor. Agents subsequently booked him into the Putnam County Jail.