SILVER POINT — Special Agents from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation have arrested and charged a Putnam County man accused of attempting to solicit a minor for the purpose of illicit sex.

On August 2, TBI Agents received information from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that a man, identified as Phillip Carlen Loftis, 53, engaged in online conversation with an undercover GBI Agent, who was posing as a 13-yearold female. During the exchange, Loftis engaged in conversation of a sexual nature and exposed himself in transmitted photographs.

On Wednesday, authorities arrested Loftis and charged him with one count of sexual exploitation of a minor by electronic means and one count of solicitation of a minor. Agents subsequently booked him into the Putnam County Jail, where, at the time of this release, he was being held on $7,500 bond.