SAN ANTONIO --
A Bexar County judge on Tuesday sentenced a former battalion chief of the Bryan Fire Department to two years in prison for soliciting sex on the Internet from what he thought was a 13-year-old girl.
District Judge Juanita Vasquez-Gardner also fined Nicholas Pappas $2,000.
Prior to punishment, Pappas took the witness stand in hopes that Vasquez-Gardner would give the defendant a second chance and sentence him to probation.
"What I did to myself was so wrong ... went against every single thing that I stood for," Pappas said.
Trial testimony revealed that in 2005, Pappas had a series of conversations online before arranging to travel to San Antonio to meet with what turned out to be an undercover police officer.
When Pappas arrived, he was met by a police officer and was arrested.
Following the sentencing, prosecutor Miguel Najera said that adults who look for underage sex on the Internet need to think twice about what they're doing.
"Our eyes are out there," Najera said. "We have people on the Internet looking for predators. If we catch you, we're going to try to send you to prison."
Pappas is the father of three children, including a daughter who was 15 years old at the time of his arrest.
