TAHLEQUAH —
A Tahlequah man has been charged with committing lewd or indecent acts to a child for allegedly taking inappropriate photographs of a girl with his cellular telephone.
Donald John Bragg, 46, was charged with one count of lewd or indecent acts to a child under 16. Prosecutors allege Bragg took close-up photos of an 8-year-old girl who was asleep and clad in underwear sometime in March 2012.
According to a police report, a 10-year-old girl told her stepmother in late March that Bragg had taken a picture of her. The parents asked a friend, who was also an acquaintance of Bragg’s, to see whether Bragg may have taken the photos. That person later returned and said Bragg had taken photos of the girl, and others, and had them on his phone.
Tahlequah police contacted Bragg and asked him to retrieve his phone for review. Police said Bragg complied and showed them the pictures on his cell phone, including a photo of the 10-year-old girl at McDonald’s with two other adults.
But police said Bragg also had pictures of an 8-year-old girl asleep in his home. Some of the photos Bragg allegedly took were close-ups of the girl’s underwear, according to police.
Police said they asked Bragg why he had taken the pictures of girls with his phone. Bragg allegedly told police he’d taken the photos “because they’re cute.”
Bragg reportedly told police the 8-year-old girl lived in a nearby apartment and visited his home daily to watch movies with him. According to an incident report filed in the case, police spoke to the mother of the 8-year-old, who told them she let the girl go to Bragg’s home from time to time, but Bragg had always left the door open.
The mother told police there was one occasion when she noticed the door nearly closed, and sent a friend to check. She said her friend found the girl in a bedroom, and that Bragg said the girl had been jumping on a bed.
The mother also told police she then stopped letting her child go to Bragg’s home because it “didn’t feel right for a 40-something man to hang out with an 8-year-old girl.”
Police said they took Bragg’s cell phone and a home computer as part of their investigation.
Lewd or indecent acts to a child under 16, a felony, in punishable by not less than 25 years in state prison.
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