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ATTLEBORO -- A 56-year-old man who police allege attempted to solicit sex online from who he thought was a 15-year-old girl was ordered Monday to have no contact with minors -- physically or online.

Salvatore LaRiccia of Medway declined to comment on the allegations against him after he was arraigned in Attleboro District Court where he pleaded innocent. `` The best thing for me to say is `no comment','' LaRiccia said.

Police allege LaRiccia left work at Engineered Materials Solutions on Perry Avenue last Friday afternoon and went to Balfour Riverwalk to meet who he thought was a teenage girl he communicated with online.

Instead, LaRiccia, a married father with grown children who once led an anti-tax group in Medway, met up with an undercover female auxiliary police officer and two detectives who arrested him.

LaRiccia, who has no prior criminal record, faces similar allegations in Plymouth County, where authorities there arrested 10 other suspects in a sting operation separate from the Attleboro investigation. He is free on $20,000 cash bail and faces charges of enticing a minor under 16 and attempting to disseminate material harmful to a minor.

LaRiccia was scheduled to appear in Plymouth District Court on similar charges today (Tuesday).

Police and experts in the field of Internet crimes against children say they were not surprised by the number of men arrested in the sting, which included the arrest of a Plymouth selectman.

A study commissioned by the Department of Justice in 2001 found that almost one in five youths, ages 10 to 17 surveyed, received unwanted sexual solicitations while online during the course of a year.

Three percent received an aggressive solicitation involving off-line contact or attempts or requests for off-line contact.

`` The Internet is a pedophile's dream,'' said Attleboro police Detective Sgt. Arthur Brillon.

Brillon said child predators often lurk in Internet chat rooms and on Web sites like myspace.com where children have profiles of themselves, often with photographs.

Brillon, who has two children in college and a 15-year-old at home, recommends parents keep computers with Internet access in a common area where the computer screen can be seen while the child is online.

The investigation into LaRiccia's alleged activities began in late June when a city woman, who has children of her own, notified police about online conversation she allegedly had with him.

During the conversation, police said, the woman identified herself as a 15-year-old girl and the communications were sexually explicit. The man she communicated with used the screen names `` sal492003'' and `` romeogioseppel,'' according to police.

Brillon took over the communications and assumed the identity of a 15-year-old girl and received, via e-mail, a photograph of a balding man and another photograph of a penis, according to police.

When the man asked for a meeting to have sex, Brillon set it up. Detectives followed LaRiccia as he left from work and drove directly to the park.

He was arrested by detectives Jeffrey Peavey and James Cote as he approached an undercover female auxiliary police officer, police said.

Attleboro police seized LaRiccia's office laptop, a digital camera, a cell phone and six unlabeled compact discs after they executed a search warrant at his office where he has worked since April.

They also seized a digital camera from his car. During booking, they also found a scrap of paper with the name and telephone number of the Crown Plaza hotel in Pittsfield, a cell phone and $298 cash, police said.

LaRiccia is due back in court Aug. 2 with a lawyer.