The second in command of a small Brunswick County police force paid a teen $60 for sex acts, an arrest warrant detailed Wednesday.
Michael Alan Hayes, 38, a lieutenant with the Northwest Police Department, surrendered to police Wednesday morning on charges of solicitation of a minor for sex and filing a false police report. He has since been released.
According to the warrant, Hayes contacted the girl via Craigslist.org and met with her Nov. 27.
The warrant also charges that on the same day, Hayes filed a false report with the Brunswick County Sheriff's Office "concerning the sources and circumstances of the damage to the vehicle" he was operating. The warrant alleges Hayes' false report prevented a deputy from fully investigating "the cause of bullet strikes to the vehicle."
According to the Brunswick County Sheriff's Office, Hayes reported he was driving his personal vehicle along River Road near Sunny Point on Nov. 27 when someone shot at his car. Hayes reported finding a dent in the body of the vehicle and a hole in his tire.
How that relates to the prostitution charge was not immediately clear.
Hayes, an eight-year veteran of the Northwest Police Department, tendered his resignation to Chief Copelan Taylor on Tuesday, Taylor said.
"I have some issues I need to attend to in my personal life," Hayes wrote in the two-sentence resignation provided to the StarNews by Taylor.
The chief said the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation contacted him Saturday to say that Hayes was being investigated. Taylor said he put Hayes on 30 days of paid leave that night.
According to Jennifer Canada, spokeswoman for the SBI, the investigation into Hayes followed a request from the Boiling Spring Lakes Police Department, which recently arrested two men in connection with a prostitution investigation that began there in November 2012.
On May 4, Boiling Spring Lakes police arrested Kyle Bradley Wolfe, 20, and Shawn Christopher Conley, 20, on charges of prostitution of a minor.
Boiling Spring Lakes Police Chief Brad Shirley said at the time of the arrests the investigation involved advertisements on the Internet via different social media websites. The warrant for Hayes names the same 17-year-old girl as the warrants for Wolfe and Conley.
Hayes has a misdemeanor death by vehicle conviction on his record from May 1991 in New Hanover County.
According to an article in the Wilmington Morning Star, Hayes was 16 when the car he was driving ran into the back of a vehicle on Gordon Road. His 14-year-old girlfriend, Jennifer Allen, was killed and two others – Sharon Shivar, 15, and Kevin Francis Dwyer, 16 – were injured. The group was on the way to school at Laney High, the article states.
Hayes was convicted of the misdemeanor in August 1993.
Chief Taylor said he was unaware of the incident, but it would not have prevented Hayes from becoming a police officer.
