Man Pleads Not Guilty to Sex Charges : Courts: Prosecutors accuse Marc Leege of Oxnard of offering an undercover officer $1,000 for the use of her fictional 3-year-old daughter.

An Oxnard man on Monday denied trying to acquire a toddler for sex, pleading not guilty in Ventura County Municipal Court to felony charges of pandering and soliciting.

Ventura police arrested Marc Charles Leege, 38, Thursday in a motel room as he bargained with an undercover detective for the use of her fictional 3-year-old daughter, prosecutors said. Investigators said they taped the conversation, which veteran detectives labeled as graphic.

Police said they were led to Leege by a woman who said the helicopter mechanic solicited her for the services of a young child three weeks ago. Investigators declined to identify the woman.

The woman informed police of the request, and investigators put Leege under surveillance, which culminated with his arrest at the Motel 6 on Harbor Boulevard.

Investigators said Leege offered the undercover officer, who posed as a desperate drug addict, $1,000 to have sex with the fictional child.

“He certainly thought he was soliciting a real child,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Mark Pachowicz said. Pachowicz said Leege was charged with two felony counts each of pandering and soliciting sex from a minor.

If convicted, he faces a maximum term of 12 years in prison, Pachowicz said.

On Monday, Municipal Judge Thomas J. Hutchins agreed to increase Leege’s bail from $100,000 to $250,000.

“We just don’t know a lot about him,” Pachowicz said in arguing for the increase. Leege apparently does not have a Ventura County criminal record, but investigators believe Leege has lived in several states the past few years.

The balding Leege, who has a thin, light brown goatee and mustache, said little during the court proceeding. The Arkansas native sat apart from most of the prisoners appearing in Hutchins’ court Monday afternoon, and jail officials said Leege’s cell is in the jail’s protective custody section.

His placement in a special cell is for his own safety, officials said, because other inmates often threaten accused child molesters.

The nature of the charges has shocked even the most veteran of sex-crime prosecutors and detectives, Pachowicz said.

“Even to the people that work sex-crime, this one comes across even more disgusting than usual,” he said.