A Nepali arrested in the US on Internet sex charge

The Peachtree City Police in Feyette County, Georgia State in the US, has arrested a Nepali student for trying to entice a 15-year-old girl for sex over the Internet.

Govinda Bahadur Basnet. (Photo source : Fayette News Daily)

According to local news portal Fayette Daily News, Govinda Bahadur Basnet, 41, a doctoral student from Nepal, who is doing research at the University of Georgia, was arrested Wednesday afternoon at his residence.

On Thursday, he was taken to court for trial. "Every time Magistrate Judge Joe Tinsley asked Basnet a question, he broke down and cried," the report said.

The crying was so loud at times during Thursday's hearing that Basnet would bend over in his chair, and Tinsley had to order him to sit up in the chair.

On Rhursday afternoon, the court denied bond for Basnet on the grounds of lack of employment and lack of ties to the United States.

District Attorney Scott Ballard urged the court to deny bond, stating that Basnet has been dismissed from his work at University of Georgia following his arrest.

The report quoted Peachtree City Police Chief Jim Murray as saying that Basnet lived with his wife and two-year-old son in the married housing. The son was at home with Basnet at the time of his arrest.

The wife, child and a wife's cousin were in court with Basnet Thursday.

According to Murray, Basnet engaged in conversations of a sexual nature and sent explicit pictures to an undercover Peachtree City police officer. He had also planned to meet with the undercover officer in Peachtree City.

"He was planning to set up a meeting with the undercover officer 'as soon as he could sneak away' but as soon as we learned he was the father of a two-year-old and was living in the married residences at Georgia with a number of young children around him, we felt we had to go get him," said Murray.

Basnet was in the United States on a student visa.

Basnet told the court Thursday he had been living in Athens for four months, and was paid a stipend from the university. He said that was his only income and that his wife was not employed. Basnet also said he had been in Athens four years before when he received his graduate degree.

Police seized Basnet's computer as well.

He was born in Solukhumbu and is currently doing Ph.D. work in ecological and environmental anthropology at the UGA. In early 1990s, Basnet taught plant pathology for two years at the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Sciences, Chitwan.