SANTA ANA — from www.ktla.com – A retired California Highway Patrol officer was convicted Tuesday of trying to engage in a sex act with a 13-year-old girl, who turned out to be an undercover policewoman.

Lt. Stephen Robert Deck, 54, who had been out on bail since being arrested in an undercover sting in February 2006, was taken into custody immediately after the jury found him guilty of attempted lewd acts on a child under 14.

“I think the jury got it right — he’s a sexual predator,” Deputy District Attorney Robert Mestman said.

The jury took several hours in total to convict Deck.

Defense attorney Court Will acknowledged during the trial that his client tried to meet the fictitious 13-year-old girl named Amy, but argued the prosecution could not prove Deck had a “definite, unambiguous intent” to have sex with the girl that night.

Will told the jury that Deck, who was ill on the day he was arrested, only intended to have an initial meeting with the girl that night in Laguna Beach, but conceded that Deck might have intended to have sex with her later.

“Mestman characterized Deck as a cunning police officer who knew how to skirt the law and even had computer software that was so powerful it wiped his records so clean a forensics expert couldn’t retrieve any files after 2005.

Deck brought a digital camera, condoms and a key lime pie with him when he drove from Oceanside to Laguna Beach to meet “Amy” on Feb. 18, 2006, Mestman said.

Deck belonged to a “Daddies and Daughters” Web site that featured a chat room in which he talked about having sex with a fictional daughter, Mestman told the jury.

Deck was single, had never been married and did not have a daughter, his attorney Will said.

Deck faces a maximum sentence of four years in prison plus a lifetime registration as a sex offender.