Sex offender charged after allegedly sending explicit material to minor in Webster County

DIANA, W.Va. (WBOY) — A registered sex offender from Webster County was charged again after allegedly sending explicit material to someone he thought was a 15-year-old girl.

On April 25, troopers with the Pocahontas County detachment of the West Virginia State Police received information from an FBI agent in New Orleans who had engaged in an undercover chat with someone in Diana, located in Webster County, according to a criminal complaint.

The agent told troopers that they had chatted with Steven Cogar, 44, of Webster Springs, on the Whisper app while posing as a 15-year-old girl, troopers said.

During those conversations, Cogar spoke to the agent in a sexually explicit manner and sent multiple explicit videos and photos of himself through the Kik app, according to the complaint.

After receiving subscriber information of Cogar’s username through Kik, troopers tracked the IP address associated with the account to a location in Webster County, troopers said.

Cogar was a registered sex offender from an incident of displaying obscene material to a minor in 2011, troopers said. As a result of the 2011 conviction, Cogar is supposed to register all of his social media accounts with the WV Sex Offender Registry, and none of the accounts which Cogar used to communicate with the agent he believed to be a 15-year-old girl had been registered as such, according to the complaint.

Cogar has been charged with use of obscene material in attempt to seduce a minor. He is being held in Central Regional Jail.

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