An Opp man is behind bars after being arrested for allegedly sexually abusing a 5-year-old boy.

Opp Police Chief Mike McDonald said Friday that his department opened an investigation on Aug. 20, after it was reported that a 41-year-old had sexually abused a male child over the course of several months.

According to McDonald, investigators discovered that the offense took place at the offender’s home in Opp.

Darwin Joe Young was arrested and charged with sodomy first degree and sexual abuse of a child under 12.

McDonald said the OPD, Covington County Department of Human Resources, Safe Harbor and the Covington County District Attorney’s Office worked together on the case.

Young was arrested by OPD A-shift officers without incident and is being held in the Covington County Jail on a $600,000 bond.

The case is still under investigation.

Under Alabama law, sodomy in the first degree is classified as a Class A felony. A person commits this crime if he engages in deviant sexual intercourse with another person by forcible compulsion or engages in deviate sexual intercourse with a person who is incapable of consent by reason of being physically helpless or mentally incapacitated or he, being 16 years or older, engages in deviant sexual intercourse with a person who is less than 12 years old.

Sexual abuse of a child under 12 is a Class B felony, and the crime is defined as “a person commits the crime of sexual abuse of a child less than 12 years old if he or she, being 16 years old or older, subjects another person who is less than 12 years old to sexual contact.”

If convicted, Young faces a term of imprisonment of life or not more than 99 years or less than 10 years for the Class A felony, and not more than 20 years or less than two years for the Class B felony.

McDonald said the OPD continues to ask if you have any information of a child or elderly person being sexually or physically abused to please contact the OPD or your local law enforcement agency.