Police say a Leawood man accused in Missouri of posing as a college recruiter and making kinky phone calls to high school athletes is suspected of making similar calls to students in Lawrence.

“We are investigating that there is a connection,” Lawrence Police Sgt. Mike Pattrick said Friday. “There are tremendous similarities to the cases.”

The mother of a Lawrence High School athlete who received one of the calls in December said she was relieved by the break in the case.

“I am really pleased,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified. “I’m also really shocked. I didn’t think they’d be able to find him.”

James O. Riccardi III, 42, has been charged in Lafayette County (Mo.) Circuit Court with two misdemeanor counts of endangering the welfare of a child and three misdemeanor counts of harassment. He is scheduled for arraignment June 4.

Riccardi did not return a call for comment.

The Missouri charges started with an investigation in Higginsville, about 50 miles east of Kansas City. Higginsville Police Chief Cindy Schroer said the parents of three high school wrestlers there had told police in February their sons had been called by a man claiming to be a recruiter from the University of Missouri.

The caller asked the young men to go to a secluded room in their house, then asked them questions about discipline and eventually asked the athletes to spank themselves.

Pattrick said police here are investigating “at least a dozen” similar calls to athletes at LHS and Free State High School. The details of the Missouri case against Riccardi were nearly identical to the December phone call received by the Lawrence woman’s son.

“It’s so similar,” she said. “I think it is the same person.”

Schroer said MU officials had told investigators they had received numerous similar reports from athletes across the state.

“It got to be so they designated somebody from the public relations department to handle all the calls that came in over the weekend,” Schroer told the Journal-World.

Police said they had tracked the calls to Riccardi; a detective called him and recorded his voice during the conversation. Several athletes said the voice sounded like the man who called them.

Missouri and Kansas officials searched Riccardi’s home May 6.

Schroer told the Journal-World that investigators found newspaper clippings about sports teams, pictures of what appeared to naked children and a book about discipline.

Investigators are looking into similar phone calls that were made to students in Iowa, Nebraska and Texas.

Pattrick didn’t have a time frame for wrapping up the investigation here.

“We’re in contact with investigators there,” he said.