BATON ROUGE - A man who was taken into custody Tuesday after being linked to a runaway 12-year-old girl was fired from his job as a probational employee at one of Louisiana's prisons, officials said. 

According to the Department of Corrections, 26-year-old Ariel Anderson worked at Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel as a probational employee since Dec. 2023. He transferred to Elayn Hunt from Allen Correctional Center, which he worked at for four months. Before that, he worked for four months at Elayn Hunt and left for personal reasons before taking the job at Allen

He was taken into custody Tuesday and was booked for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Officials started searching for Anderson after a 12-year-old girl was reported missing from her Houston home. Anderson and the child were spotted at a Houston motel together. On Tuesday, her debit card was used in Baton Rouge at a motel along Airline Highway and he was taken into custody. 

The girl was found safe in Houston. 

No further details about Anderson's arrest were immediately available.