A week-long undercover operation with the Polk County Sheriff’s Office led to 17 men being arrested in a sex sting that focused on those who “prey upon children online.”
PCSO undercover detectives worked from March 10 to 16, posing as young children on social media platforms and on-line dating sites, to investigate those who “prey upon and travel to meet children for unlawful sexual activity,” according to PCSO. The suspects were communicating with officers they thought were children between the ages of 12 and 14 and soliciting them for sex acts.
Detectives from the DeSoto, Hillsborough, Lake and Osceola Sheriff’s Offices, as well as the Tampa and Altamonte Springs Police Departments, also participated in the operation.
“The reason for these operations, as you know, is to round up sexual predators, deviants,“ Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said. “And this is among the most nasty individuals that we’ve ever rounded up.”
PCSO said most of those who interacted with them online showed up to an undercover location in Polk County at separate times to meet up with the children and sexually batter them. According to PCSO, some of the men also transmitted pornographic images and solicited the children online, and they now face charges for that.
The lineup of men arrested range from a Navy veteran from Winter Garden who works for the Disney Vacation Club to an assistant youth soccer coach from Plant City. The oldest arrested suspect is 59 and the youngest is 21.
In total, the 17 arrested suspects are facing a combined 44 felony charges, which include “traveling to meet a minor for sex, attempted lewd battery, use of a computer to seduce a child, transmission of material harmful to a child, and violation of probation.”
Of those arrested, 28-year-old Jose Salgado was the only one to hail from Plant City. On March 11, he engaged in an online conversation with an undercover detective who was posing as a 13-year-old girl. He asked the “girl” to send him photos of herself and told her things he wanted to do to her sexually when he arrived.
“He said he was OK with her age if she was OK with his,” the PCSO report said. “He asked for the address to the undercover location and then drove there that evening, where he was arrested without incident.”
Salgado told deputies he was an assistant youth soccer coach and worked as a pest control technician. Salgado was booked into the Polk County Jail and has been charged with one count of Traveling to Meet a Minor For Sex (F-2) and one count Attempted Lewd Battery (F-3).
Some of the other men arrested ranged from a Legoland employee who wanted to “make out and stuff” with a 14-year-old boy in the bathrooms and areas of the park to a Liberty University student who was in flight school in Lakeland and was engaged in an online conversation with an undercover detective posing as a 12-year-old girl.
When arrested, the Liberty student, 21-year-old Christian Buford, told officers he thought “since he was only going to be receiving oral sex from the girl, he thought it was OK,” according to PCSO.
The 17th and final suspect arrested during the investigation, which has been dubbed Operation Guardians of Innocence V, was 50-year-old Joseph Beaman of Ocala. He was arrested on March 17 after engaging in an online conversation with an undercover detective who was posing as a 12-year-old girl. He spent several days chatting with her and telling her the sexual things he wanted to do to her. Detectives obtained a warrant for his arrest and he was taken into custody without incident. Beaman was charged with one count of Use of Two-Way Communication Device to Commit a Felony (F-3) and one count of Transmission of Material Harmful to a Minor (F-3).