Elementary School Principal, 59, Allegedly Asked Teenage Girls to Skinny-Dip at His Home

A 59-year-old Arizona elementary principal was arrested on Tuesday after allegedly posting online ads asking teenage girls to go skinny-dipping with him at his pool.

Karl Judd Waggoner is being held at Pinal County Jail on the suspicion of luring and aggravated luring of a minor. His bail is set at $100,000. He faces no formal charges as of yet and it is not clear if he has yet hired an attorney.

Officials began investigating Waggoner, a newly-hired principal at Four Peaks Elementary School in Apache Junction, Arizona after a detective from Pinal County Sheriff’s Office came across a Craigslist ad for a skinny-dipping party asking teenage girls to come out to Waggoner’s home in Scottsdale, Arizona.

A sex crimes detective posed as a 14-year-old girl in order to engage Waggoner, who participated in “sexually inappropriate conversations, discussed engaging in sexual acts with the undercover detective and provided sexually explicit photos,” Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb told PEOPLE.

“Our detective found the ad last week,” Lamb explained. “All through this holiday weekend, he [Waggoner] was posting online and soliciting for young girls. We decided to move on it Tuesday morning and we picked him up near the school.”

Lamb says the detective made it “very clear that he portrayed himself as a 14-year-old girl,” and that the two “went back and forth” for six days.

Lamb says Waggoner allegedly “admitted to having the profile and the communication with the investigator.” Lamb also said that the sheriff’s office has reached out to law enforcement in Texas, where Waggoner previously worked, on a suspicion that he has a history of inappropriate behavior.

Sally Marks, a spokeswoman for the Apache Junction Unified School District, says Waggoner was hired on July 18 after undergoing several background checks. He started work at the elementary school on August 7 and is now on leave.

“We did a background check on him and nothing showed up,” Marks said, adding that the district received “glowing recommendations” about Waggoner. “All the standard things we do, fingerprinting, background checks. We also did personal checks. … We are supposed to go back five years and we went back 15. He was very qualified. We were initially thrilled.”