Lakeville Man Charged with Soliciting Teenage Boy for Sex

A man has been charged with soliciting a 13-year-old boy from Maple Grove for sex after police set up an online sting to track him down.

Robert Gregg Trummer, 49, remains in the Dakota County Jail on a $250,000 bond. An omnibus hearing in his case is scheduled April 24 in Dakota County District Court in Hastings. 

According to the criminal complaint, Maple Grove police were called to a home on Jan. 31 after a resident reported that a man had contacted his 13-year-old son online and asked him for sex. 

The Maple Grove resident told officers that he had come home to check on his son and saw an SUV driving very slowly past his house, with the male driver peering at the house. The SUV passed the home and turned around, and the resident said he slowed down again and pulled to the side of the road so the driver could look more closely at the address.

Police learned that the 13-year-old had been chatting with a man online and had agreed to let the man come to his house for sex. The boy told the man that he was 13, and the man replied that his age was “cool,” according to the complaint.

Investigators tracked down a phone number and IP address through Craigslist posts, and learned that the IP address was registered to Trummer, whose Craigslist posts read, “Daddy’s looking  -- m4m049 … for his boi” in the “casual encounters” section of the website, the complaint charges.

An officer posing as a 14-year-old boy replied to Trummer’s ad: “Hi, I’m a boi.” A conversation between the two ensued, with Trummer and the officer exchanging photos, according to the complaint.

Trummer asked the officer if he wanted to meet, drive around and talk, and invited him to “ask me anything,” the complaint says. He told the officer that he had met a “few other bois” via Craigslist and said his last boyfriend was 18, and that they did a number of sexually explicit acts, according to the complaint.

The officer posing as a 14-year-old continued to ask questions, and Trummer became more graphic and explicit in his answers before asking for a photo of the boy in his underwear, the complaint charges. The two made arrangements to meet at a park in Lakeville, and Trummer provided his cell-phone number, which authorities say is the same number from which he called the 13-year-old in Maple Grove.

Trummer told the 14-year-old that he would be driving a blue SUV, and advised him to delete their messages “to be safe,” according to the complaint.

Police began surveillance of Trummer’s home and watched him leave and drive to the designated park in Lakeville. Trummer watched teenagers playing volleyball, then drove to a parking lot, where he was arrested.

Police found beer, lotion and Trummer’s cell phone in his SUV after his arrest, according to the complaint.