Kauffman said he was begging for mercy and asked the detective to make the case go away.  At one point, Kauffman asked if the detective could "just take" the hard drive seized from Kauffman's home computer and not do anything with the evidence.

Kauffman, reached at home, confirmed that he had made the call but denied he asked the detective to destroy evidence.

Kauffman was arrested Friday on four counts of felony enticement of a child in a sting orchestrated by Murray, who posed online as a 13-year-old girl.  Kauffman is free on $50,000 bond.

Murray said in his probable cause statement that led to charges that Kauffman believed he was communicating with a girl from Diamond in a Yahoo chat room last November and December.  In online messages, Murray said, Kauffman asked the girl for sex and for nude pictures and encouraged her to have sex with a girlfriend in front of a webcam so Kauffman could watch.

Missouri law allows recording of a phone conversation between two parties within the state as long as at least one of the callers knows about and consents to the recording, media lawyer Jean Maneke of Kansas City said.  Murray said he did not tell Kauffman he was taping the call but was not required to under that law.

Murray said Kauffman called him at home around 8 a.m. Wednesday.  Murray said he had reported the call to Newton County prosecutors.

Assistant prosecuting attorney Bill Dobbs declined to comment on what effect this might have on Kauffman's case or whether any additional charges will be filed.

"Please have mercy on me," Kauffman said on Murray's tape of the call.  "I'm begging that I can put my life back together and this don't have to go any farther."

Murray responded that there was nothing he could do because the case is now in the hands of prosecutors.

Kauffman then asked, "There's no way you can just take the hard drive and not go any farther with it?"

Kauffman said he was not asking Murray to destroy evidence.

"I didn't ask him to do anything illegal.  I just asked him for mercy," Kauffman said.

Kauffman declined to discuss the specifics of his case, including how he plans to plea.  His attorney from Buffalo did not immediately return a phone message left with his office.  Kauffman's next scheduled court date is a pretrial conference on Feb. 20, court records show.

In his call to Murray, Kauffman said his wife had told him, "Honey, my love is stronger than this," apparently referring to the criminal charges.

"I guarantee, I guarantee you, that I will never have that [chat] program on my computer again as long as I live," Kauffman told the detective.

Collins is a village of about 200 people in St. Clair County, about 100 miles from Diamond and about 55 miles northwest of Springfield.  Diamond is about 10 miles southeast of Joplin.

Kauffman, 63, said he resigned as mayor of Collins, an office formally known in a village as chairman of the Board of Trustees, and pastor of Temple Lot Church there.

Murray, 69, is a retired Diamond police chief who has been chasing child sex predators in online chat rooms since 2002.  Kauffman's arrest is the 20th resulting from Murray's work, Diamond police said.