LAS CRUCES - A Las Cruces man is headed to prison for two years for seducing a 13-year-old California girl and a 15-year-old Arizona girl through MySpace and cell-phone camera.

Michael P. Thurlo, 22, could have faced up to 24 years in prison for the 16 felony counts of criminal sexual exploitation of a child, criminal sexual communication with a child, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and soliciting a child by electronic communication.

Third Judicial District Court Judge Stephen Bridgforth of Las Cruces suspended the majority of Thurlo's sentence, according to a judgment filed Monday, and ordered Thurlo to complete five years supervised probation, 80 hours community service and sex offender treatment.

Thurlo was booked into jail Monday night to begin his sentence.

The investigation began in September 2009, when the mother of a 13-year-old girl in Tehachaphi, Calif., alerted police after she reported finding a picture of a man's face and a picture of a man's genitalia on her daughter's cell phone.

The mother also produced a handwritten letter in which Thurlo allegedly wrote that he loved the girl, intended to marry her and wanted to have children with her.

Police said the 13-year-old girl looked 10 years old based on non-sexual photographs on her MySpace profile, according to court documents.

The girl identified the sender of the items as Thurlo, a native of Farmington who lived at 1020 S. Triviz Drive in Las Cruces and had been her MySpace friend

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since June 2009, when she "randomly added him as a friend to her account" and told him she was 15.

That day, Thurlo allegedly wrote that she was "not too young" for him and that he wanted to be in a relationship.

In the following months, the two allegedly engaged in what court documents describe as "very sexually explicit conversations."

Thurlo's MySpace profile, which was locked by authorities, contained a post to his blog from a few days before police were notified - "I love you Alexis, forever and for always, baby, you and me together until the end" - and a photo album called "My Baby" containing five photographs of the 13-year-old, two titled "the love of my life, my baby."

After police began investigating, Thurlo allegedly met another girl, age 15, from Arizona, when she sent a text message to his number by mistake.

He told police they also became engaged, "but they are waiting to get married until she turns 18 years old."

In October 2009, Thurlo allegedly got back in contact with the 13-year-old California girl, this time calling himself "Chris, a.k.a. The Wolf" and writing "that he was afraid the police would be looking for him, so he left the country for a couple of days."

Throughout October, the sexually explicit conversations allegedly started up again.

When the Arizona girl traveled to New Mexico over the holidays, Thurlo allegedly went to meet her.

The girl's mother said she thought Thurlo was only 16 or 17.

Police reported finding 11 lewd images and one lewd video of the Arizona girl, date-stamped in 2010.

Ashley Meeks can be reached at ameeks@lcsun-news.com; (575) 541-5462.