A retired Claiborne County elementary school administrator has been charged by federal authorities with attempting to entice a minor to engage in sexual activity.

Joseph Wayne Jennings, 53, of New Tazewell, also is charged in a criminal complaint filed by FBI Special Agent Sandra F. Farrow with attempting to produce child pornography and with distributing and possessing it.

Jennings, according to the criminal complaint, retired in 2007 as principal of Clairfield Elementary School in Claiborne County.

He had been arrested earlier this week when he arrived at a Holiday Inn motel in Knoxville for what he thought was an Internet-arranged meeting with a woman and her 8-year-old daughter for sexual activity.

Instead, he was met by the FBI and officers with the Knoxville Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Detective Thomas Evans had played the part in Internet conversations of the woman Jennings thought he was meeting, according to the criminal complaint.

Authorities had been led to Jennings, according to the federal criminal complaint, after an Ohio woman who had communicated with him via the Internet became alarmed after he brought up, and later sent to her, child pornography.

The Ohio woman had reported Jennings' e-mail address to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which referred the information to the Knoxville Police Department's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, the federal criminal complaint said.

Jennings made an initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Dennis Inman on Thursday at the James H. Quillen U.S. Courthouse.

During the 10 a.m. appearance, Judge Inman, after evaluating a financial affidavit submitted by Jennings, agreed to appoint Federal Defender Services to represent the defendant.

He was ordered detained in the custody of the U.S. Marshal pending a Monday, June 15, detention/preliminary hearing.

During his initial appearance, Jennings said he currently was working part-time at a pharmacy.

But after the hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Helen Smith said Jennings actually had been working at a Knoxville Toys-R-Us store.

He previously had taught "at-risk children" through a program funded by a non-profit agency, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Smith.

In court on Thursday morning, Jennings said he had been laid off after the program lost funding.