On March 30, 2017, the Lebanon Police Department was proactively scanning Craigslist for prostitution and drug activity taking place in the classified advertisement site. At approximately 1:00PM, two separate posts made on the 30th were found in the New Hampshire Casual Encounters section advertising for a “teen runaway” to respond with a picture to “chat” and “maybe meet”. The advertisements were listed in locations for Laconia and the Lakes Region and both ads were nearly identical.
Concerned that this posting was targeting vulnerable underage females, Lebanon Police Officers sent a message to one of the ads posing as a 15-year-old female from Lebanon, New Hampshire who was seeking to run away. A male subject responded to the inquiry and began having a conversation via email with this purported 15-year-old female. The initial conversation can be categorized as grooming in nature but quickly turned sexual with the male subject indicating he wanted to come to Lebanon to pick up the 15-year-old female at a shopping plaza and bring her back to his residence to stay overnight. The male subject indicated that he wanted to engage in sexual intercourse in his vehicle and later in his bed.
At 
approximately 11:00PM on March 30th, a silver Toyota pulled up to a female undercover officer who was standing on the sidewalk along Route 12A at the male subject’s instruction. Plainclothes Lebanon Police Officers subsequently made contact with the male subject and identified him as Dominick F. Tarallo, age 53, of Laconia, New Hampshire. Tarallo was subsequently arrested for two counts of Certain Uses of Computer Services Prohibited, RSA 649-B:4. The first count is a Class B Felony alleging that he used an online service to solicit a minor child for sex. The second count is a Class A Felony, due to the fact that Tarallo was previously convicted in Chittenden County, Vermont for a similar offense in 2016.
In 2015, the Lebanon Police Department assisted Homeland Security and New Hampshire’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force in investigating Tarallo until he was arrested in South Burlington, Vermont for soliciting an undercover officer he believed was a minor child. Tarallo was sentenced to jail time for that conviction, was placed on probation and is a registered Sex Offender as a result.
Tarallo was booked at the Lebanon Police Department where he refused the services of a bail commissioner. After arraignment today at the Lebanon District Division, New Hampshire Second Circuit Court, he was held on $75,000 cash bail and transported to the Grafton County House of Corrections. Tarallo also faces potential Violation of his Probation.