"Hi, want to chat?"

That introduction earlier this week from a man to a 14-year-old girl was the start of a two-hour instant message exchange filled with explicit sexual detail. The discussion ended with a plan to meet and landed a West Ashley resident in jail.

Elliot Ashley Kohn, 26, is the first person to have charges brought against him in Charleston after a partnership among eight police departments and the South Carolina attorney general's office formed to concentrate on Internet predators.

The 14-year-old girl was actually Trisha Taylor, a 38-year-old computer crimes detective with the Charleston Police Department.

Kohn is charged with criminal solicitation of a minor and was being held Thursday at the Charleston County Detention Center on $100,000 bail. If convicted, he could face up to 10 years in prison.

"If these predators are going to come to South Carolina to hunt our children, we're going to get them," said state Attorney General Henry McMaster, who attended the bond hearing to tout the partnership and a new law aimed at protecting children. "These predators now have become the prey."

The partnership was formed in October after a 2004 law made it a crime to stalk or entice a child over the Internet or telephone. Across the state, nine men have been charged and one has been convicted under the law, which increased the maximum penalties for all obscenity offenses involving minors.

McMaster said the number of Internet predators continues to grow. One of every five teenage Internet users in the United States is solicited by a stalker every year and about two-thirds of those solicitations were aimed at teenage girls, according to a study by the U.S. Department of Justice.

William Burke, a licensed professional counselor who specializes in sex offender assessment and treatment, said an increasing number of his clients have used the Internet to lure children.

"The Internet is the single greatest outside threat to kids right now," Burke said.

Burke mentioned the site MySpace.com, which can allow predators to learn where teens attend school, where they live, who their friends are and other personal information.

Of the 200 offenders Burke treats, he said 10 percent to 15 percent used the Internet in an attempt to entice children.

Online predators are experts in picking up teens and earning a child's trust, said Taylor, the computer crimes detective. She said parents need to make their children aware of the dangers of the Internet.

Taylor, posing as the 14-year-old girl, chatted with a man on Yahoo Messenger for two hours earlier this week in two separate discussions. She and the man set up a meeting in West Ashley for Wednesday morning.

But instead of a teenage girl, it was police officers who showed up.

Kohn's lawyer, Chris Skipper, said his client has been married for five years and had attended James Island High School.

Skipper asked Magistrate Linda Lombard for a low bail amount under the condition that Kohn has no contact with children or a computer. Assistant Attorney General David Stumbo requested a high bail and asked that Lombard allow police officers to randomly search Kohn's home and vehicle for computers.

Lombard agreed to the search and set bail at $100,000.

Contact John Chambliss at 937-5573 or jchambliss@postandcourier.com.