Major human trafficking sting nets 124 arrests in Polk County

good morning everyone thank you for being with us today we're here for once again press conference once again we're here with our Wall of shame this is operation sent us a naughty list you know it's a news flash that we did another undercover operation ironically the only people that don't seem to get it in the entire county are these folks a few weeks ago I was at dinner with my son and he said well dad it's about time for you to round up another hundred or so isn't it and I said what makes you say that he says duh you do it every November in December and sometimes May and June so I mean everybody gets it except these folks and they went out of their way in order to go to the county jail this last weekend I want to introduce to you the folks that are with us today and I want to start with our Chiefs of Police who ladies and gentlemen if you want to see an example of the most professional law enforcement executives any place in the nation you can look here because it's these Chiefs we have chief Ruben Garcia from Lakeland Chief Jim Olinsky from Haines City chief Andy Rae from Auburn Dale we have director Charlie Byrd from Winter Haven we have chief Jill hall from Bartow and certainly they all work together with us at the sheriff's office they sent their law enforcement officers their police officers to work with my deputies and their detectives to work with our detectives and at the end of the day this operation wouldn't be possible without the hard work in the dedication and the support of the State Attorney's Office Bryan Hoss who's our state attorneys not with us today but Brad Copley who is the special prosecutor is as well as Nicole or who's the director of intake and will be dealing with the overwhelming majority of these cases but I think most importantly today or the counselors that once again have agreed to join us we had four different anti-human trafficking groups that were with us this time the two young ladies that are with us today crystalline and Marianne Thomas they both are with one more child and you'll hear from Krista in just a few minutes but I can tell you unequivocally that they make this operation complete because from the moment we take these folks into custody our potential victims of human trafficking are and immediately offered services to protect them and to help them break this horrible chain that they're involved in also the Children Advocacy Center worked with us and saliha freedom worked with us as well as as well as Heartland for children but the primary purpose of this operation as the past operations or to identify and rescue the victims of human trafficking in addition to that the other Co primary purpose is to find deviance that want to prey on our children they want to attack our children that stalk our children online and when you look at the seven that are listed in the center there the child sexual predators understand that five of them traveled two of them only used the computer will tell you a little bit of more about them in just a second but they five of those folks came to an undercover home thinking they were going to engage a child in sex I can tell you our detectives saved lives because it wasn't a real child it was a detective pretending to be a very young child but they thought they were showing up to sexually batter to rape a child this operation was shortened duration started on December the 3rd and wrapped up on December the 8th our detectives cast a wide net out upon the ocean and what we brought in was child predators deviants victims of human trafficking and John's now I want to talk about the John's for just a second and then you're going to see some snapshots if these guys didn't do what they did these ladies here fortunately would be out of business but this group to the left enable create the environment that our victims of human trafficking work in are they all cognizant that these young ladies are victims no most of them are in total denial but the reality is it's them their conduct their funds that feed the entire process and we're going to talk about them a hundred and twenty four arrests in just that short period of time of less than a week fifty three of them were prostitutes or victims of human trafficking forty six were John's 17 were transporting or deriving proceeds they will be further investigated for the possibility that they were the human trafficker of these ladies we talked about the seven predators and there was one other that got scooped up in the process i said before and i underscore once again and you'll hear chris to say this we did something different here that many agencies across this state and nation don't do we embed the counselors with us and they work long hours so that we can immediately offer services and here's what we found we found two young ladies that showed that never ever had had a criminal arrest and they still didn't go to the county jail because they immediately agreed to accept services and were placed in those services and Krista will tell you more five others we have a real strong possibility that they are currently victims of human trafficking so when you figure that we identified seven in this one operation that's more than we were able to focus on in any other single operation and we've grayed out their face here what's interesting to understand that I in my heart believe that every one of these prostitutes at some point in time in their life were a victim of human trafficking if in fact they're not currently a victim of human trafficking the laws of the state of Florida are beautiful if they accept services they go through the process we wipe out all reports all photographs all data that indicates that they were ever taken into custody so that they can continue to live as victims which they really are with services and not as suspects of violating the law so I always have the naysayers I call them the haters or the uninformed that tell us things like oh it's just a business relationship between two consenting adults no it's not the John may be consenting these ladies are or have been victims but it's not a low-level nonviolent event for example in this operation we file 78 new felony charges and we filed 148 misdemeanor charges but if you listen to the loud few people who don't know what they're talking about you would think these were all angels that just got caught up something that didn't mean to happen but listen to this this group of people here had 443 previous felony charges 571 previous misdemeanor charges and of those charges 51 were violent felonies or violent crimes so at the end of the day if you think we just happened to drive by a monastery and picked up a bunch of innocent folks you're wrong that's not what happened here 30 count them 30 of these folks were married that's right do you reckon and that's Polk County vernacular do you think if you're not from Polk County that maybe their wife's a victim that they are gonna go home exposed to hepatitis HIV and in fact their wives sixty-five percent of the John's were married wives are you paying attention watch out because I can tell you that they may tell say oh it's the first time honey I didn't mean it I love you in the morning I you know it was it was a slip you might want to go the doctor get tested because it's probably not the first time they've done things they shouldn't 18 of them are on government assistance and that always fires me up I don't mind paying my taxes I certainly think government assistance is not just mandatory but as is a certain is an absolute certain requirement of a society to take care of the very young the very old the physically and mentally challenged those who just can't function but if you're well enough to go out and do this you ought to be well enough to go out and work and not take government assistance two of these victims or suspects brought their very young children to the operation did you hear me they brought their babies with them a three-year-old and I think a five-year-old on one occasion they brought their little children while they turned tricks they brought in narcotics they brought a firearm one of the ladies who showed up had a baby ten days ago ten days ago and she was already back at work one was pregnant so I'm gonna go through some flashcards as you're used to and I'm going to start with folks who are the worst of the worst of the worst and that sees deviant child sexual predators this guy didn't travel but he communicated over the Internet to what he thought was a thirteen year old female and he was preparing to travel he's retired his name's William stim Ehrman he said he was fixed so don't worry you can't get pregnant he was married that's right the guy's married he told this little 13 year old and he thought he was conversing with a 13 year old wear something sexy and easy to get out of did you hear me that's the communication he was having with a child you think there's a problem here we do of course then there's always Matthew Minardi he's a waiter he lives in Palm Harbor thirteen year old female is who he was communicating with he thought he sent nude photographs of himself and he said that I was just stupid when our colleagues from Pinellas County went to arrest him and he confessed he also used a computer he wanted to set up an environment where he and another adult could come have sex with a child that's what he fantasized about online everyone else I'm going to talk about travelled they showed up that's right they showed up at the undercover house knocked on the front door thinking they were about to engage a child in sex how about Benjamin cast Anita he's from Orlando he works as a waiter at Simpsons restaurant at Universal Studios he's got a bachelor's degree in journalism he sent nude photos of himself I guess when he's sitting down in lockup since he's got a bachelor's degree in journalism he can like prepare his own press release so that he can share with everyone that a journalism degree will help you write better after you're arrested if you want to tell your story about why you travel to have sex with a 13 year old child and there's then there's Demetrius Gonzales he's from Davenport he's a dental assistant he thought he was going to meet up with and have sex with a 14 year old boy he brought and I'll clean this up so we can use it on television equipment with him to use on the boy he said he likes to think of it as a pool you see he normally stays down in the adult end of the pool but occasionally he goes to the kiddie end of the pool did you hear me so he likes to go to the kiddie end of the pool now that's not all this guy's got a real screw loose someplace he said in the past he was a counselor for a children's camp called integrity in Burlingham New York we meet Reese Gonzalez that's just who you want around your children I didn't at a child's camp then there's Pierre Alvarez he's from Davenport he's unemployed he lives with his parents he rode his bike to the undercover location to have sex with what he thought was a 13 year old girl he sent photographs online of himself nude he talked ugly things about sex and he is now locked up in the county jail Anthony Gavin you know we had a culture change for Anthony he had a news flash he's a server at a restaurant he travelled to meet a 14 year old boy he's married I know his wife's proud but he said quote I don't want to be labeled a pedophile well if you don't want to be level labeled a pedophile why are you showing up to have sex with a 14 year old boy scary scary thing and of course then there's Joshua Bryant Joshua Bryant's from Brandon Florida he works at a convenience store he came to meet a 14 year old boy he lives with his grandmother he said he's attracted to 13 and 14 year old boys and here's his fantasy he wants to keep him at his house he wants them to stay in his room he said I'll hide you he said you know when your family reports you missing tomorrow I'll have you hidden in my room that gives me pause he didn't go so far as to say he would shackle him or imprison him but he made it abundantly clear that he would hide him from hide this 13 14 year old little boy from his parents when they reported him as missing he is dangerous folks this is his fantasy this is what he was sharing this is what he thought he was communicating to this 14 year old boy he was preparing this child to be hidden away in his home it's only a small step from a fantasy to reality that's our child predators now I'm going to introduce you to a just a snapshot of what I think or interesting John's that showed up and how could you have an undercover operation without a pastor there you go Robert John's he's a pastor at new horizons Church in Haines City he lives in Mulberry he also works at a local insurance company and he solicits illicit sex he confessed to us he stated well it just came over my cellphone all by itself well that's interesting we all have cell phones do y'all just like get ladies or prostitutes you know that search you up well not only is he a pastor not only did he solicits sex but I think he kind of biessed us a little bit to fib to us thou shalt not lie or something but he did I don't know what you say about that other than Jesus ain't gonna be happy Rodney Davis 56 from winter garden he's a disney security guard he's married been married 27 years which Arjun was soliciting he brought him a viagra pill but he didn't have a prescription for it so that's another criminal charge have viagra will travel okay here's what you're not gonna believe maybe you're not gonna believe any of it it's hard to believe any of this I mean people who live in what I call the normal world this guy walked up to the front door of this home in a neighborhood on a cool evening but nekkid if you don't know the difference in naked and butt-naked but Mehcad means you not even wearing your socks he didn't have a stitch of clothes on but he was carrying a shirt I guess in case of an emergency he walked into the house he was proud of himself that's up for debate but the detectives promptly took him into custody and gave him some britches to put on then was 44 year old Tommy Gainey Tommy Gainey is a professional golfer in fact he's got his PGA card he's from Hartsville South Carolina he's married he told us that he was here for a charity golf event and it was to be like the next morning tee off he didn't make it he was a scratch now we googled around to see if he was telling us the truth and if you google or search out and just type in two gloves it comes up with this name so he's been on the tour for quite a while there's so many things I could say about that with two gloves but I won't because my director of communication said it'll go downhill fast if you do we charged him with soliciting he missed his tee time the next morning and of course what's an undercover operation without a youth sports coach from Orlando blues in Windermere he is a youth soccer coach and he was charged with soliciting as well his name's Kirkland mullet and then you get old William Earl stocks he's 57 he's from Tallahassee he is a manager at Woodmen of the world insurance and he was in the Orlando area to present American flags to children and the snowball Express event one of the Disney hotels he didn't make it I don't know what happened to the flags but he didn't have him when he arrived at the prostitution sting he's been married 30 plus years he's a right retired lieutenant in the North Carolina National Guard and he became a new patron of the County Jail then there's Clifford or Clint I'm sorry Clint bagged him from winter garden he's an IT sells for a fortune 500 company he arrived driving his Porsche he left his wife at the mountain door a Christmas parade he said he had to go get a haircut they told me not to say any more but we don't normally give haircuts at the county jail except you know like once a month on Friday if he hangs around in the jail long enough we'll get him his haircut but I just imagine you may not need a haircut after his wife's kinsey he was supposed to get on a plane the next morning he missed his plane but if he didn't bond out he had an opportunity for first appearance then there's Babak Ramba he's from Orlando he owns the super 8 in Old Town and Kissimmee we charged him with soliciting he's married and he made the statement which is true I worked so hard to keep prostitution out of my hotel I worked so hard yet I'm here at a prostitution operation and the truth is the local hotels in this area are very proactive working with us because they don't want to add to the misery of the victims of human trafficking nor do they want the prostitution activity but yet he shows up at one of those opera patience he tries to keep away I'm going to ask the Chiefs that want to speak to speak and then Christa is going to wrap it up with Mary Mary Ann and then we'll take questions so Chiefs well as you can see we've had another successful event though it's not something to be proud of but collaboration is the key here we will continue to work with the sheriff and his team to get rid of sexual deviance from our County no matter what city they're in so we look forward to the next one we're not just up here just because the press conference was a successful operation this county works strongly together chief mentioned collaboration and I just want to reinforce that that that will continue and we're up here we work very very well together we will continue to work very well together and that should be a message again to people that we're going to get you if you come into Polk County and and we're gonna hold you accountable good morning everyone Joe Hall Bartow Police Department I personally want to thank these two ladies for being a part of this and I too want to say well I don't want to be a dead horse but I think this is a great testament to how all the agencies in Polk County come together to bring such an operation to a successful conclusion I want to thank sheriff and all the members of the Polk County Sheriff's Office and I also want to thank the members of the Bartow Police Department that participated in the program good morning Andy ray Auburndale Police Department I just like to thank the sheriff and and his staff and also the the members of the Sheriff's Office for including us in the operation it gives our detectives in our officers an opportunity to work in an organized significant undercover operation gives them some experience that they haven't had and exposes them to some things that that they might not otherwise be exposed to so it's it's beneficial to us from an experience and an education standpoint but it's also a great opportunity for us to to to be a player and this important activity and that is to lock up people who are preying on unsuspecting victims and and to protect our children it's important to us as well and we're just glad to be a part of team thank you good morning Ruben Garcia lakyn Police Department I asked myself when was this operation a success when they caught that first predator that's when it was a success all the rest of it was good but actually we could have spent all this resource all this time to catch just that one person because there's no telling us how far that web goes of his victims so if you wonder when it was a success that was when they put the handcuffs on that very first predator from this operation I want to thank the detectives that spent all those evenings out catching those guys you'll never see them by their very nature of being undercover but we have them a debt of gratitude as well and we certainly wish to continue the partnership that we have with the Sheriff's Office and all the police departments here in the county thank you thank you I'm Krystal Lynn one more child anti trafficking executive director and um I just again am immensely personally grateful for this sting one more child everything we do is about helping the lives of children and families and each of those children who came each child in our community deserves to live a drama-free life and when the John's are coming here they're not just buying sex they're benefiting off of often our childhood suffering and at the very least our current suffering has women and survivors of exploitation without stings like this the cycle would continue when I think about our anti-trafficking team at one more child and the work they do each day out on the streets knowing that there's so many more children that we're not able to reach and then we participate in a sting like this one and get to see the Predators taken off the streets these are predators who preyed upon me as a child they preyed upon dr. Mary Ann Thomas our director of anti trafficking and our anti-trafficking team can tell you they are working with over a hundred active cases of teenagers and young adults who are being preyed upon by predators just like them we have to have stings like this we're so grateful to Polk County Sheriff's Office grateful to Grady Judd and grateful to the different agencies when we get to be out there participating side-by-side with them we get to see the heart of this community and the heart of this community is that each of the teenagers and adults that are caught up some because of survival sex some because they're currently being trafficked for sex each of them though like Grady Judd said have suffered each of them have suffered and each of them need an opportunity to know about services that can provide healing opportunities for a way out and you know has a survivor who might journey began in jail I don't know other ways that you will reach us to this magnitude other ways that you will get the Predators off the streets and at the same time invite organizations like one more child to sit there through the whole process and get to walk beside the women we walk beside them for years the the teenagers we will serve them until they're 24 years old beyond that we will make sure they're plugged into the community and receiving services we look at the board and those John's and and do know that some of them have no idea who they're buying sex from and you know we wish they could hear that if you sit in the room in the booking room of a sting with the women the ones who are immediately grateful that this is happening because the violence against them is stopping and the ones who are not grateful who aren't ready for it to stop we still look at that and understand that the violence against them is going to be stopping for tonight they're going to hear about services and when I look at it has a child of a trafficking victim and a trafficking victim myself their children's children's children will benefit from the sting they will know that help exists and we will get more of the John's to stop benefiting off of the suffering of children and adults we will get more predators to not be able to anymore prey upon us and again just so grateful for Polk County Sheriff's Office and all the agencies grateful for the sting and as a community we ask for your support truly to collaborate with us as we collaborate with law enforcement that it needs to be a community collaboration where we stop the suffering of violence against our women and children whether sexual exploitation or trafficking again thank you what's important to recognize here is that every one of these ladies not only had an interaction that night but these anti human trafficking organizations will continue to follow up with them will continue to interact with them in fact one of the ladies that absolutely shut them down the night of the event has since email them and said I want to talk I need help so we'll never give up on them and that's our promise but the reality of it is and I get fired up when people go start in with all this Mushmouth talk okay how else do we find these ladies we can't run an advertisement in your newspaper on television and think they're going to show up but the criminal justice system has the opportunity to say look now we've got you in the criminal justice system but we're gonna offer you a way out we're gonna offer you a way out without any record we're gonna offer your way out with services with support and with help but if we don't throw this large net over the water then we don't catch them now you can write this down record this there'll be another one there will be another sting we'll put more people in jail and they'll be looking at Krista and dr. Thomas here because we won't lock you up if you come to this county to violate the law and taking advantage of these young ladies I have one more thing to say that I so wanted to UM make sure to let not just you Grady Judd but all of you who participated on the law enforcement side know the very next morning after one of the nights we got to sit with a young young very young adult who had been trafficked for many years and as I was talking to her you know she's sharing it was all scary and it was upsetting but she was already saying she was so grateful to be sitting here and I said I hear that but are you grateful for last night and she said I am so grateful for last night she said had you been able to show me that there were services anywhere else like had I met you randomly or seen a sign saying there was help for me as a trafficking victim I would have been too afraid to even look at that sign or talk to you but because of the sting because of it being in the safety of law enforcement all around she was able to talk to us and share that um she does want help she was able to hear and feel safe enough to have that conversation and to hear that from her own words the very next morning that she wanted us to tell the law enforcement and in polk county sheriff's office thank you thank you for being willing to do whatever it takes to let her have a chance for healing in a new life and as a wrap up with that without my chiefs who I called my Chiefs here my buddies we grew up in this business together they're professionals without their help and their resources this would not be possible we couldn't do this by ourselves nor would we want to so I'm grateful change for all of for all of you and at the end of the day we're going to we're going to do everything we can one more child if we only if we only successfully rescue one it'll be a great operation but as chief Garcia said when that first child predator walked through the door that everything else is a bonus questions it's that they requested services or there was an overwhelming it's a there was an overwhelming opinion by our service providers that these folks would be willing to receive services and met every one of the criteria that they were currently victims of human trafficking that doesn't mean the others won't be followed up everyone will continue to receive follow-up but some of them look just right in the face and said this is my job this is my business I don't care whether you like it or not to them we said well we're not going to give up on you but it is against the law and that that's the bottom line to it it is against the law and quite frankly that John's the Florida Legislature in their brilliance set up a man to set up the ability to find each of these John's for $5,000 for each event so I want to ask the judges not to waive that $5,000 I want every one of those Rascals to donate $5,000 for what they did to the court system and then we can work toward getting serve getting that money back into these service providers to help the other folks any other questions so we get to have them you know a couple hours often while the process is happening talking to almost all of them at some point want to engage at least a little bit and I would say over half we get to really have some conversations within that we do not meet any who don't have some form of childhood trauma I think that's just so important to help understand this epidemic of sexual exploitation is that even the ones like sheriff said are saying I want to be here this is you know my choice when we talk to them and they do share some of their stories it always begins with violence against them in some form and most often sexual violence against them as children you know we rarely meet one who will say there was no sexual violence at all as a child they do exist there are adults and sex work who will say they have no violence against them it is really rare that we meet one and I think that just helps paint a picture that you know once you've been victimized as a child in the developmental years especially sexually but any type of violence your life changes and you know what we can say our choices and opportunities for healthy adults are removed from us our ability to get an education is removed our ability to have healthy relationships is stunted from that point on by the time they're in adult sex work without a trafficker which some are today it has been a long journey of choices in life being taken from them a long journey of suffering and you know we just want to see the cycles stopped for their children we want to see the generational trafficking and trauma against you know men and women but especially through these stings against the women we want to see it stop other questions thank you very much have a good day we appreciate you being here at about midnight there was a house fire on Willis Road in a suburb of Mulberry and an 80 year old lady and her 86 year old husband succumbed to that fire the fire is being investigated by the State Fire Marshal Service our homicide team is working the death investigation at this early stage and I and I put that in quotes at this early stage it does not appear to be anything other than maybe an electrical or a you know just a normal house mishap however there's lots of work to do lots of crime analysis to do so we certainly want or not jumping to that conclusion but there's nothing that we see as far as a red flag in the beginning of the investigation to lead us to believe anything other than a terrible horrible unfortunate event in the in the just the shadow of Christmastime so it breaks our heart I applaud the fire service members that rushed into that house in order to try to save them both of them were brought from the house rushed to the hospital and pronounced deceased at I believe Bartow so it's a horrible event the investigation is under way there will be one by us one by the fire an investigation by us an investigation by fire services certainly the medical examiner but at this point in time we don't see any nefarious conduct of course all of that subject to change because we've got eight or nine hours ten hours after the event okay thank you very much like you probably I appreciate Scott

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Keywords: wflatampa, wflanews, wflatampanews, Major human trafficking sting nets 124 arrests inPolk County

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Length: 43min 40sec (2620 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 11 2019