Like I've said, and others have said, a ton of times, if a person is intent on committing a crime, they will. No registry, residency restriction, or any other law will stop that. And this is further proof of that.
08/19/2011
By Susan Jacobson
A Kentucky police lieutenant, a convicted murderer, a theme-park pastry chef, a business coach, a candy-store employee, a school computer technician and two convicted sex offenders were among 26 men arrested in a child-predator investigation, the U.S. Attorney's Office said today.
The multi-agency sting, dubbed "Operation Safe Summer," began in May and ended Thursday with the arrest of the final 13 of the 26 men, said Robert O'Neill, U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Florida.
"They just don't think they're going to get caught," said Agent Dan Ogden of the Brevard County Sheriff's Office, which was heavily involved in the operation. "It's a compulsion."
- For some it may be a compulsion, but a vast majority it is not.
One of the suspects had 7,000 movies depicting child pornography, law officers said. Some of the pornography depicted babies crying out in pain as they were being sexually abused, investigators said.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children will view the videos to try to identify the victims. The hope is that their abusers can be found and prosecuted.
"Most of the [abused] children in America are abused by someone they know or by a relative," said Lt. Tod Goodyear of the Brevard County Sheriff's Office.
The operation was part of Project Safe Childhood, a national initiative started in May 2006 by the U.S. Department of Justice to crack down on child sexual exploitation and abuse.
- So what about a crack down on normal child abuse by parents and others?
Agents set up their undercover operation on social-networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace, photo-sharing networks and chat rooms that pedophiles frequent, Goodyear said.
"We target areas where we know they're going to be looking for children or where children are going," he said.
The oldest man arrested was Samuel Langfitt III, 72, of Cocoa Beach. He is a former U.S. Navy officer and a businessman who runs Trisel, a "personal executive coaching" company, according to its website.
The youngest are both 19: Jasen Anderson of Edgewater and Bradley Fox of Cocoa.
Charges include lewd and lascivious exhibition and solicitation, possession and distribution of child pornography and solicitation and travel to engage in sex with a minor. Two of the men traveled to Brevard County with the intention of having sex with children, investigators said. Others sent obscene pictures of themselves over the Internet, agents said.
Others arrested include:
- Steven Waring, 32, of Cocoa, who resigned from the computer department at Space Coast Junior/Senior High School after his arrest. He is charged with possession and distribution of child pornography.
- David Williams, 37, of West Point, Ky, who resigned from the Radcliff (Ky.) Police Department after his arrest. Reports show he thought he was chatting online with a 14-year-old girl who actually was an undercover law officer. He is charged with lewd exhibition and solicitation.
- Phillip Trott, 49, of Cape Coral, who is on probation from a 1990 Volusia County case involving second-degree murder and possession of a firearm by a felon. He is charged with lewd and lascivious exhibition and solicitation.
- Rafael E. Gonzalez, 50, of Palm Bay, a registered sex predator on probation for the 1997 sexual battery of a minor relative or child for whom he was the custodian. His charges are possession and distribution of child pornography.
- Thomas P. Baker, 53, a registered sex offender from Apopka, who was sentenced to four years and three months in prison for a 1998 lewd and lascivious assault on a child younger than 16 in Seminole County.
