Guy police officer fired after sexual solicitation arrest

A part-time police officer for the Guy Police Department has been fired after he was arrested Thursday on a charge of sexual solicitation of a child, authorities said.

Guy Police Department Chief Dave Martini said officer Josh D. George, 30, of Quitman was terminated Friday.

"The termination happened Friday when I found out the information," Martini said.

Martini said George had only been employed with the police department for a month.

"He was only out [patrolling] only six times in a police car," Martini said.

In an online chat, George began communicating with a person he believed to be the mother of two young children and later arranged to meet her and the youths for "sexual purposes," a previous ArkansasOnline story reported.

The purported mother George was chatting with was actually an undercover investigator. Police said he was arrested in the parking lot of a Conway grocery store after meeting the investigator there.

While George was working at the Guy Police Department, he was also working at the Arkansas Department of Community Corrections as a correctional officer.

Dina Tyler, deputy director at the Arkansas Department of Community Corrections, said George came into his position as a correctional officer with a clean criminal background check in March.

"He worked for us until Friday," Tyler said.

Tyler said George had good recommendations from the former sheriff of Faulkner County and a lieutenant with the current administration when he got the entry-level job.

George began working as a sheriff's deputy in 2007 before being fired in 2013 and rehired as a detention officer, a Faulkner County sheriff's office statement said. He reportedly quit the post as a detention officer a month later.

George is in the Faulkner County jail pending arraignment April 29 at 9 a.m.

He's being held on a $100,000 bond. While George is being held, Martini said he is trying to get his former employee decertified as a police officer.

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