Florida Sex Sting Operation Leads to 15 Arrests

A while back, I remember a friend told me that to try and catch an episode of “To Catch A Predator” shown on Dateline. I eventually forced myself to watch one episode and what I saw sickened me down to my core. Men, some in their 60s, would scour online chat rooms looking for innocent young girls to talk about and have sex with. They would send provocative photos and set up a “date” to have sex, usually when the underage girl was going to be home alone. What these men did not know what that undercover agents were pretending to be these underage girls and were setting these men up.

Recently, a undercover sex sting much like this was uncovered in Florida. Fifteen men, between the ages of 18 and 67, were arrested. Sheriff of Polk County, Grady Judd, stated, “One of the most shocking things to me is when a man shows up with candy bars and Skittles in one hand and condoms in the other. That’s about the most despicable thing I can imagine.” Judd stated that men responded to Craigslist ads and struck up conversations on online chat rooms in order to find girls as young as 8 years old in order to have sex with. Responses received were downright despicable. Judd said, “They did things like, they would communicate either over the telephone or the Internet and say things like, ‘Please wear pink lingerie.’ One of them said, ‘I want a 13-year-old girl to do gymnastics nude.’ One sent obscene photographs of himself which is not uncommon. Another brought vodka and Red Bulls for them all to drink.”

The sting operation was one surprise after another. One sergeant involved in the arrests was more than surprised to see his son’s Little League coach coming to look for underage sex. Another man who was arrested was a local karate coach at a teen center. This sting operation was the second of the year. Judd understands these operations are costly, coming in at approximately $20,000, but, for obvious reasons, they are well worth it. He states, “But you know what, you can’t put a price on a child’s life. So if it cost $100,000 that would be all right. What we’ve done is kept 15 perverted, demented individuals from attacking children this weekend.”

A previous sting led to the 50 arrests. Judd stated that most arrested usually plead guilty and spend, on average, five years in jail and another ten years on probations as registered sex offenders. In this most recent sting, there were some criminals who may have been predators for a long time. Judd states, “We had one that bragged of having sex with an 8-year-old when he was 16 and a 12-year-old when he was 21.” Judd sees these arrests as a way of alerting the public about the danger of children using the internet, especially social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace. He says, “If we weren’t arresting these guys this weekend they certainly would have traveled to meet your child or grandchild given the opportunity.”