A 60-year-old Greencastle man who thought he was hooking up with a 13-year-old girl for a sexual interlude arranged over the internet will spend the next six years in prison after reaching a plea agreement with the Putnam County Prosecutor’s Office.
Timothy Wright fell into a trap set up by a child predator group known as the Falcon Pursuit Coalition in a February 2025 case.
In a change of plea hearing in Putnam Superior Court, Wright pleaded guilty to a Level 4 felony count of child solicitation to engage in sexual intercourse or other sexual activity with a minor. Sentenced to eight years in prison, he will serve six in the Indiana Department of Correction and two years on probation.
Wright also pleaded guilty to operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated in a separate matter for which he will receive no additional jail time due to the plea agreement. Wright received 468 days credit for jail time served during his local incarceration.
As a result of the plea, a Sept. 22 jury trial was canceled.
Last spring, Wright was the only Greencastle man arrested during a flurry of child solicitation arrests occurring locally after stings set up by anti-predator groups. That activity prompted Prosecutor Austin Malayer to notify the predator groups that while his office was happy to prosecute local offenders, it was opposed to the anti-predator groups luring other such violators from all across Indiana, including places like Corydon, Indianapolis and elsewhere, to be arrested and prosecuted here in cases with other connection to Putnam County other than being the site to which the perpetrators were lured to for their illicit activity.
The Wright case unfolded about noon Feb. 22, 2025 when Wright allegedly agreed to meet a 13-year old juvenile female decoy known as Bella Marie online after a member of the Falcon Pursuit Coalition posed as the young girl. He reportedly asked the girl for nude photos several times and sent her a photo of his private parts on Facebook before deleting it soon thereafter.
He originally asked her to meet outside the Greencastle Starbucks but after driving past, urged her to instead met him by the Ashley Square Cinema. They then walked to the former Taphouse Burgers restaurant after meeting and Wright suggested the female fondle him under their table.
Greencastle Police Det. Matt Huffman soon arrived on the scene and escorted Wright out of the restaurant, where Officer Jared McDaniel was waiting to place him in handcuffs.
Acknowledging his wrongdoing in texts to the decoy, Wright wrote, “People get locked up for this,” “Not trying to go to jail” and “We better not do this.”
But it was too late, he had already been identified and arrested.
His cellphone was seized and forensically downloaded to reveal his message via Facebook and WhatsApp, as well as saved photos the decoy sent to him posing as the 13-year-old victim.
