Friends say Cary man's innocent of sex charge

RALEIGH, N.C. — A Cary man accused of taking indecent liberties with a 12-year-old boy is innocent of the charges he faces, his friends said Friday.

Dakota Walter Lee Melton, 21, of 324 Brook Arbor Drive, is charged with one count of felony taking indecent liberties with children and one count of second-degree kidnapping.

According to search warrants returned earlier this week, Melton met the boy on MySpace and eventually took him back to his apartment, where the boy fell asleep on the couch.

The boy awoke with a man "sucking on his neck," investigators said in search warrant affidavits. A juvenile-certified sexual assault nurse examiner found hickeys on the boy's body, the warrant stated.

Neither Melton nor his attorney will comment on the case, but friends, who did not want to be identified, say "he is not a pedophile" and would never have don’t anything like what police allege. Investigators won't comment either and won't say if the boy ever told Melton his true age.

"It's not what a person believes or should believe, it's what the age is," Cary police Capt. Mike Williams said.

Melton, who made his first court appearance Friday morning, also told investigators during their initial investigation on July 24 that he performed sexual acts via a Web cam for their primary source of income.

That prompted investigators to apply for search warrants. They seized five computer hard drives, a DVD, a digital camera and two memory cards from the apartment.

"We're continuing our investigation to see if there are other crimes we should be charging, other offenses," Williams said.