by Noel Brennan
CAMERON - Cameron Police arrested a former Rockdale High School football star Tuesday for trying to meet up with an underage girl for sex.
Derek Tremayne David, 19, was arrested on Tuesday at a home in Rockdale. The former linebacker for the Rockdale Tigers was once a top college recruit who committed to play at Texas Tech University.
Rockdale Police arrested David in March 2011 for the alleged sexual assault of a 16 year-old girl. He's slated to go on trial for that charge in Milam County in February of 2013.
Cameron Police Chief, Randy Dixon, said David is also one of four men accused of trying to meet up with a 15 year-old girl for sex this past week. David, along with Devin Labert Hemphill, 21, Ricky Matthew Lopez, 22, and another teenager are charged with Online Solicitation of a Minor.
Cameron Police said the men were chatting inappropriately with the girl on Facebook. When the girl's mother found out, she contacted police. Working with officers, the mother posed as her daughter on Facebook so she could lure the men to her home.
"The mother was here with us at the police department," explained Chief Dixon. "We were basically telling her what to say and she was basically transposing it into the lingo of a teenager."
The four men showed up at the home at different times beginning on Saturday. Dixon said two of them even climbed through an unlocked window. Cameron police officers were waiting inside the home.
"The gentlemen knew that they shouldn't be doing what they were doing, or they would've come during normal hours and knocked on the door," said Dixon.
The men were arrested at the scene, including Derek David. He showed up at the girl's home on Tuesday, and Dixon said he surrendered without a fight.
"To see someone that kind of threw his life away for something of this nature - I don't fathom that. I don't understand it," said Dixon.
David was booked in to the Milam County Jail Tuesday, but he has since bonded out. In addition to this latest charge, David was also arrested in May of 2011 for possession of marijuana in a drug-free zone.
