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Fla. child sex sting nets 22 suspects, including Methodist pastor who volunteered in schools
WaPo ^ | 09-16-2016 | Peter Holley

Posted on 09/16/2016 12:24:46 PM PDT by NRx

The men come from any number of backgrounds and range from young to old.

In the end, Pensacola police said, they were united by a common goal: having sex with minors.

During a five-day stretch that ended Sunday, all 22 of the men — including a pastor from a Florida church — were dragged down by “Operation Undertow,” an Internet sting in which undercover agents lured suspected child predators via computer to an undisclosed Florida location, police said.

The men were snagged after they responded to ads for sex with teenage males and females created by agents on “various websites,” police said. Once the men initiated conversations with investigators, police said, warrants were issued for their arrest.

When the suspects showed up at the designated location, they were taken into custody and charged with traveling to meet after using a computer to lure a child.

Police called the effort “the largest multi-jurisdictional Internet sting” since the department arrested 25 men during a one-week-long sting in 2011.

“It is through the collaborating, partnering and building relationships that we protect our children and make the Internet a safer place,” Pensacola Police Chief David Alexander III said in a statement. “This effort of arresting and prosecuting these individuals helps to stop future abuse. This was five days of hard work for our officers, dispatchers, support personnel and personnel from other agencies, in addition to the planning of this operation.”

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; US: Florida
KEYWORDS: fbi; operationundertow; pedophiles; pensacola; sexoffenders; sting; umc
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Deeply disturbing. Photos of perps at the linked site.
1 posted on 09/16/2016 12:24:46 PM PDT by NRx
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To: NRx

Sounds like a show on TV...


2 posted on 09/16/2016 12:28:13 PM PDT by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)
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To: NRx

“You would think that these child predators would learn the risk they are taking, but they don’t,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd told The Washington Post earlier this year, after announcing the results of another undercover operation. “They’re so fixated on these children, they simply throw caution to the wind, and then we go round up another group of them. They can’t resist taking the chance, and I can’t resist arresting these freaks.”


from the article


3 posted on 09/16/2016 12:30:39 PM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
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To: NRx

They must have known that it was almost certainly a law-enforcement setup ... and yet, they went anyway. Mixed motives, perhaps, maybe hoping to be caught.


4 posted on 09/16/2016 12:31:06 PM PDT by Tax-chick (Talk less. Smile more.)
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To: 2banana

At the rate morals are changing, maybe, in five years, it could be a reality show.


5 posted on 09/16/2016 12:31:21 PM PDT by Mr. Douglas (Today is your life. What are you going to do with it?)
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To: NRx

First of all, a HUGE round of *APPLAUSE* for the men and women cops that have to do this gawd-awful dirty work. God Bless Them! I don’t know HOW they stomach it.

*APPLAUSE*

Secondly, ANYONE who harms kids and animals in my book deserves the harshest punishment available. Grrrrr!


6 posted on 09/16/2016 12:32:23 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin (I don't have 'Hobbies.' I'm developing a robust Post-Apocalyptic skill set!)
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To: NRx

They should target Congress and the White House.


7 posted on 09/16/2016 12:33:26 PM PDT by Brilliant
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To: NRx

A minister? Just damn.
It’s people like that who
give child molesters a bad name.


8 posted on 09/16/2016 12:39:07 PM PDT by sparklite2 (The game overs whether you play it or not.)
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To: NRx

They’re just members of NAMBLA, another wing of the Democrat Party right alongside the LGBT crowd. Liberals call it “being inclusive.”


9 posted on 09/16/2016 12:48:31 PM PDT by DJ Taylor (Once again our country is at war, and once again the Democrats have sided with our enemy.)
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To: NRx
...sting nets 22 suspects, including Methodist pastor who volunteered in schools.

The Methodist pastor who interrupted Trump in Flint yesterday?
10 posted on 09/16/2016 12:49:37 PM PDT by Resettozero
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To: NRx

11 posted on 09/16/2016 1:04:23 PM PDT by Yo-Yo (Is the /sarc tag really necessary?)
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To: NRx

Bill Clinton and Jeffrey Epstein have a safer modus operandus, Lolita Island!


12 posted on 09/16/2016 1:05:10 PM PDT by Enchante (Hillary's new campaign slogan: "Guilty as hell, free as a bird!! Laws are for peasants!")
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To: NRx

I read the story but can’t figure out what the crime they’re being charged with is ? Anyone else know?


13 posted on 09/16/2016 1:32:07 PM PDT by major-pelham
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To: major-pelham

The actual legal terms vary from state to state, but in layman’s language they are being charged with solicitation of a minor. In the old days most states covered this under laws against “Gross Indecency” but somewhere along the way lawyers and judges decided people were too stupid to figure out what that was. So its been replaced with all kinds of laws that we used to cover with just the one.


14 posted on 09/16/2016 1:37:55 PM PDT by NRx (A man of integrity passes his father's civilization to his son, without selling it off to strangers.)
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To: Tax-chick

Well, the horrific thing is maybe they have done this many many times before with out any hitches. I hope it’s like you suggest, this doesn’t really ever happen and when it does it’s sure to be cops but the evil weirdos are in such a froth they can’t think straight. But I sort of doubt it.

Freegards


15 posted on 09/16/2016 1:40:57 PM PDT by Ransomed
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To: Ransomed

Well, you could be right.


16 posted on 09/16/2016 1:56:34 PM PDT by Tax-chick (Talk less. Smile more.)
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To: Tax-chick

“With dozens of men being arrested during each operation, and officials in other jurisdictions seeing similar results, an obvious question arises: Do the undercover investigations deter would-be predators?

Judd said the answer is yes. He said his operations are netting fewer predators now than they did five years ago. Back then, he estimated, authorities would arrest “40 or 50” suspected predators during a week-long investigation. His April sting netted 18, including a football coach from a Christian academy.

“There’s just not that many people relative to the general population that are that disturbed and deviant,” he said. “I believe there is a bottom to this barrel. Having said that, they are so focused on finding children.”

It makes me wonder if there are just less good people as a %, or if they get pornified and whipped into a porn/sex froth with all the social media and instant gratification, or if these weirdos were always there but it was harder to connect for them so we didn’t know about them.

I would maybe think that some DA would cut deals on sentences/charges if they could reveal actual social media-organized underage sex rings.

Freegards


17 posted on 09/16/2016 2:16:46 PM PDT by Ransomed
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To: PeterPrinciple

...I can’t resist arresting these freaks.”

***
Good. Keep scooping up all of the trash, sheriff.


18 posted on 09/16/2016 2:55:10 PM PDT by Bigg Red (Go away, Satan! -- Fr.Jacques Hamel (R.I.P., martyr))
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To: major-pelham

They were arranging to have sex with 14 year old boys or Girls who were really policemen instead. When they showed up they were arrested. Minister thought he was meeting a 14 year old boy to have sex with.


19 posted on 09/16/2016 2:55:57 PM PDT by bluecollarman (P)
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To: DJ Taylor

Yep. But we are just pervophobes.


20 posted on 09/16/2016 2:56:24 PM PDT by Bigg Red (Go away, Satan! -- Fr.Jacques Hamel (R.I.P., martyr))
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