PEABODY -- When she first received the instant message on her computer screen this spring from "Mrgarv," a man more than twice her age, the 11-year-old was clear: "I'm too young for you."

"No, you're not," Michael Garvin, 26, allegedly replied.

Over the next several weeks, police say, Garvin repeatedly e-mailed and called the girl until, late on the night of May 26, he persuaded her to sneak out of her Peabody home at around midnight and meet him nearby. It was at that meeting, police say, that Garvin kissed and hugged the girl.

Now, Garvin, of 10 Folly Pond Road, Beverly, is being held without bail, charged with child enticement and indecent assault and battery on a child.

Garvin, an office manager at the Cambece Law Firm and a graduate of Salem State College, is the third person in Essex County and the second in Peabody to be charged under the new child enticement law, which makes it a crime to try to lure a child into sexual activity.

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