A Covington man was arrested in North Carolina after driving more than 150 miles in an attempt to have sex with an underage girl, according to the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office.

Timothy Wade Bryant, 43, was arrested June 1 around 12:10 a.m. in Cherokee County, N.C., reportedly in the driveway of the girl's residence.

Bryant, an acquaintance of the girl, allegedly came to the county, located in the western tip of North Carolina, to take the minor to a motel, according to an article in the Cherokee Scout. A concerned citizen reportedly alerted the CCSO of Bryant's intentions.

Bryant was arrested and charged with attempted statutory rape, solicitation of a child by computer and felonious restraint, according to the CCSO. He was still in custody at the Cherokee County Detention Center under a $50,000 bond as of Monday afternoon.

The Newton County Sheriff's Office had no information of any prior charges on Bryant and he was also not found on the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's Sex Offender Registry.

Locally, law enforcement was also busy catching predators last week.

NCSO deputies, along with the GBI, arrested a 28-year-old active duty soldier from Fort Benning Sunday afternoon for soliciting sex from what he thought was a 13-year-old girl. But the minor turned out to be an undercover NCSO deputy working as part of the Georgia Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce.

Pfc. Andrew David Craig was arrested at Fort Benning, where he lives with his wife and young child, said NCSO spokesperson Investigator Sharron Stewart. He was charged with obscene phone contact with a child, electronically furnishing obscene materials to minors, the computer porn and child exploitation act, and sexual exploitation of children.

In the course of the three-month investigation, Craig had reportedly requested explicit pictures of the minor, sent pictures of himself and communicated from both his work and home computers, which were confiscated for evidence during the arrest.

He had also requested to meet up in person and even talked on the phone once with the "minor," according to Stewart.

All the pieces and paperwork that allowed the NCSO to make the arrest came together Sunday.

"It takes a while to work these cases," Stewart said. "There's a lot involved."

She said it was satisfying bringing the investigation to a conclusion, especially knowing that it could have been a real child involved instead of an undercover officer.

Craig is currently in custody at the Newton County Detention Center as of Monday afternoon under a $20,000 bond.