LEWISTON – A local man who tried to flee California with a 14-year-old girl he had met over the Internet admitted to the charge Tuesday in a Modesto courthouse.

A day before a trial date was to be scheduled, Daniel Roger Fecteau pleaded guilty to child abduction, attempted lewd acts with a child, sending pornography over the Internet and burglary.

Investigators said the 49-year-old Lewiston man flew to Sacramento in July and lured the girl to the airport after maintaining a relationship with her for months over the Web.

Police began searching for the teen after her mother reported her missing July 2. Fecteau and the girl were found a day later at a Sacramento airport shortly before the pair was scheduled to fly back to Maine, police said.

Police said the girl had lied to her relatives about where she was spending the night in order to meet Fecteau and fly back to Lewiston with him. But the 14-year-old later told police the suspect had told her through computer conversations that he was 17.

The girl was not hurt during the ordeal and was later turned over to the custody of her parents.

Police in Lewiston joined the investigation soon after Fecteau was arrested. Investigators here said they found child pornography on Fecteau’s computer after they were given permission to seize and examine the machine.

Fecteau could face charges in Maine once he is done serving his sentence in California, police said. Investigators said data on his computer also revealed he had been corresponding with young girls across the country and that he was keeping sexual photographs of some of them.

“He was telling them he was 17 years old,” said Ray Coyle, the Modesto police detective who arrested Fecteau. “I’ve talked to several young ladies who said they had a hard time getting rid of him. A couple of them had to change their phone numbers.”

Fecteau has been held in a California jail since he was arrested. Police who worked the case said they will try to convince a judge that Fecteau should be given the maximum prison sentence to be served in that state.

Coyle said probation officials were shocked by the “egregious nature of the crime and the absolutely conscience-shocking content of his personal computer.”

Sentencing was scheduled for Nov. 20.

Fecteau, an unemployed truck driver when he was arrested in Modesto, was a trained emergency medical technician who used to work locally for ACT Ambulance Service. He does not have a criminal record in Maine.

mlaflamme@sunjournal.com