A Bulloch County man charged with molesting a 9-year-old girl pled not guilty during an arraignment hearing Wednesday.
James Kelley Catron, 41, of Colfax Road West, is accused of molesting the victim, to whom he is related, over a two-year period at a home on Stephens-Little Road near Register, Bulloch County Sheriff Lynn Anderson said.
Catron was taken into custody July 13 after investigators collected enough evidence for the arrest.
"A forensic interview was conducted with the child, during which the child disclosed the identity of the perpetrator," Anderson said.
Sheriff's Capt. Todd Hutchens charged Catron with two counts of aggravated child molestation, two counts of aggravated sodomy, two counts of enticing a child for indecent purposes, two counts of incest and one count of first-degree cruelty to children, according to jail records. Catron is being held without bond in the Bulloch County Jail.
The current charges follow a series of previous arrests and convictions involving inappropriate acts against children.
In November 2013, Catron was arrested on public indecency charges after being caught exposing himself to children on a school bus. A student reported seeing a man in a gray Chevrolet Suburban pull up next to the Bulloch County bus and expose his genitals, committing lewd acts.
Sheriff's investigators set up surveillance on the bus as it repeated its daily route on Highway 80 West and caught Catron at the same spot as the previous incidents were reported, near Mixon Mobile Home Park, on Nov. 6, Nov. 7 and Nov. 8 of that year.
Investigators approached Catron, who stopped behind the bus, and caught him in the act of exposing himself in the same manner the student had reported earlier, according to sheriff's reports at the time.
Catron was charged with three counts of public indecency for those incidents. He pleaded no contest to the three counts merged into one and was sentenced to serve 12 months in the Bulloch County Correctional Institute, according to Bulloch County Clerk of Court records.
In 2011, Catron was convicted in Bulloch County state court for similar public indecency charges. According to records from the Bulloch County Clerk of Courts Office, he pleaded no contest to those charges as well and was sentenced to 90 days in jail and ordered to pay $410 in fines and surcharges, to undergo a psychological evaluation and to observe certain mandates, including avoiding the area in which he allegedly committed lewd acts, at T.J. Maxx and Henry Boulevard.
Before that, he was incarcerated for about 10 years for a 1998 conviction of first-degree child cruelty regarding injury to his then-girlfriend's grandchild, according to court records.
Holli Deal Saxon may be reached at (912) 489-9414.