Florida police arrest 32 would-be child molesters during sting operation

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Florida police arrest 32 would-be child molesters during sting operation

2011-06-22 22:13:47 GMT+7 (ICT)

CLERMONT, FLORIDA (BNO NEWS) -- More than 30 men have been arrested in central Florida during a week-long operation targeting sexual predators who traveled to a home in order to have sex with a child, police said on Wednesday.

The operation in Clermont, a city in Lake County, began on June 12 when the Sheriff's Department's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (ICAC) began establishing surveillance teams, take-down teams, transport teams, interview teams, and chat teams.

The chat teams were responsible for initiating contact with persons who would agree to or were soliciting sex with children. "They began initiating the chats on Tuesday, and as these guys would agree or solicit sexual activity the arrangements would be made to meet them at the home," said John Herrell, a spokesman for the Lake County's Sheriff's Office.

The detectives posed as either children between the ages of 9 and 14 or as a parent of such a child who would allow the suspect to have sex with the child. After the suspects agreed to have sex with a child, meetings were set up.

Herrell said detectives had rented a vacant vacation home in Clermont where the meetings took place. "Typically what they would do, the detectives would of course obtain a name for the suspects and they would use the resources that we have available to us to either pull up a driver's license record, somehow get a photo of this person, and be able to have a description of them, know what they look like," he said.

The operation was similar to that of NBC's 'To Catch a Predator', a popular but highly controversial television series in which potential sex predators were lured to a home under the pretense of having sex with a child. The operation in Florida was conducted by law enforcement alone.

"As they would make their way up to the front door, the surveillance team would be able to spot them and confirm their identity and once they knocked on the door they were taken into custody," Herrell said.

A total of 31 men were arrested between Wednesday last week and Sunday, and one additional suspect was arrested on late Monday evening. "The one that we got [on Monday] night was just outside the time frame of the operation. Somehow he got away and we walked a warrant through and went and picked him up," Herrell explained, adding that all the suspects are between the ages of 19 and 60.

One of the men arrested was armed with a handgun which was concealed in his pants. Another suspect drove from Georgia with his two children - ages 8 and 6 - still in the car. "These suspects came to that house with the intention of having sex with a child. Instead they went to jail," said Sheriff Gary Borders.

Herrell said his department often works similar cases, but it was the first time in the county that such a large operation took place. "We are always working these cases but we never set out to conduct an operation especially at this scale, of this magnitude," he said.

The spokesman said the department expects to conduct similar operations in the future. "There were so many that obviously the threat is real. We recognize it as a legitimate and credible threat to the children in our community so yeah we will probably, most likely, do this again."

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