Jodi Mack Hester

Arrest documents allege an East Texas man, who is already a registered sex offender, pretended to be a 10-year-old girl and sent pornographic images via Snapchat.

Jodi Mack Hester, 56, of Tyler, was arrested on a possession of child pornography with intent to promote. He remains jailed on a $500,000 bond.

According to an arrest affidavit, the Smith County Sheriff’s Office was alerted to online chats showing a man wanted to have his 10-year-old daughter involved in sexual activity. The user was identified as Hester and the investigator found a photo of him in women’s lingerie.

Messages revealed Hester was offering up his “daughter” for sex. However, once detectives searched his home, they didn’t find children. Hester said he didn’t have access to children, but he would have online conversations either acting as a child or pretending to have a child.

On Hester’s phone, detectives found videos of young girls. A search of his phone found conversations — most of them on Snapchat — with him portraying himself as a child, specifically one who is 10 years old. In one Snapchat message, Hester shared an inappropriate image of a child, according to the document.

A search warrant found he shared an explicit photo of a child about 11 times to multiple users in his Snapchat conversations around Jan. 28, the affidavit said.

According to the Texas Public Sex Offender Registry, Hester was convicted of indecency with a child in 2008 and he was sentenced to probation. The victim was a 13-year-old girl. He is required to register annually for his entire lifetime.