A Volusia County teacher's aide was among 15 men arrested for traveling to Deltona to have sex with people they met online, who they thought were children, Volusia Sheriff Ben Johnson said Tuesday.
Dennis Blyth, 63, of Deltona, who works at University High School in Orange City, made contact with undercover detectives in an online chat room being used by investigators to catch men looking for children to exploit sexually, Johnson said.
When Blyth and the 14 others arrived at a Deltona home or grocery store parking lot, instead of meeting children they encountered masked deputies who arrested them on the spot.
The investigation is the first of its kind for the Volusia Sheriff's Office. Dubbed Operation Cyber Sting, it took seven months to organize and involved a dozen law enforcement agencies from around the state.
Investigators using the Internet posed as children, or adults promoting sex with children. They lured and rounded up suspects for seven days ending at 2:30 a.m. Sunday.
Another suspect, Michael Llorca, 44, of Longwood, left his 12- and 14-year-old daughters in the care of his brother so he could travel to Deltona at 11:45 p.m. Sunday to meet a 14-year-old girl for sex, investigators said.
Blyth thought he was hooking up with two boys, ages 14 and 11, for sex. Blyth came to the parking lot of the Winn-Dixie at 2880 Howland Blvd. in Deltona thinking he was going to meet the guardian of the boys.
He ran into detectives who handcuffed him. He is charged with traveling to meet or lure a child for sex, using a two-way communication device to facilitate a felony and use of a computer to seduce or solicit a child. Blyth was jailed on $75,000 bail.
School district officials said Tuesday that Blyth has been suspended pending an investigation.
The suspects, whose ages ranged from 21 to 66, came from around Florida and from as far as New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado to have sex with children at a home on Providence Boulevard in Deltona.
"It took seven months to coordinate with other law enforcement partners and a seven-day sting to catch 15 people who were on computers trying to exploit our children," Johnson said. "As a result of this successful investigation, we have 14 other spin-off investigations that we are conducting."
The suspects included men from the U.S. Army Reserve, U.S. Air Force, a former U.S. Navy gunner, a trucker, a retiree and sales representatives.
They arrived in Deltona night and day. Some arranged meetings in the parking lot of a Winn-Dixie at Howland and Catalina boulevards instead of the home, arrest reports show.
According to the arrest reports, undercover detectives posed as single mothers asking men to help teach their teenagers sex, as sisters wanting men to teach sex to younger sisters or as boys alone at home. The investigators would post ads in "ecommerce" chat rooms and other social web sites.
Once a suspect answered the advertisements, agents engaged in online conversations with the suspects outlining the age of the children, the nature of the sexual activity.
Llorca, Michael Brown, 31, a former U.S. Navy gunner of Dade City; Emmanuel Vazquez, 24, Kissimmee; James Rees, 50, Palm Coast; and John Baran, 66, Mims; were each charged with traveling to entice a parent or guardian to consent with sex with a child, use of a computer to solicit a parent or guardian to consent with sex with a child and use of a two-way communication device to facilitate a felony.
Rees drove 49 miles to meet who he thought was a 9-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy for sex. Rees responded to an ad in which agents posed as a 43-year-old Deltona single mom. Rees asked detectives if "she" had boys or girls, and when told yes, answered "nice" and "would enjoy using her" referring to the 9-year-old, saying he would like to "breed her" when she was 15 or 16, investigators said.
Michael Billings, 42, Leesburg; Anthony Fenech, 25, Orlando; Michael Ingersoll, 27 a trucker from Arvada, Colo.; Edward Kalinowski, 59, a retired Connecticut police officer who lives in Ocala;
James Carpenter, 39, a U.S. Army Reserve from St. Augustine; Aurelio Osle, 50, Miami; Kyle Lightner, 21, airman with the U.S. Air Force at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico; Charles
Kremer, 42, of Gilbert, Ariz.; and David Colon-Arraya, 22, Apopka; were each charged with traveling to meet or lure a child for sex, use of a computer to seduce or solicit a child, and use of a two-way communication device to facilitate a felony.
All the suspects face up to 15 years in state prison if convicted of the second-degree felonies, said State Attorney R.J. Larizza.
None of those arrested were sexual offenders or had criminal records, Johnson said.
"It's disturbing to me because we have these kinds of operations all over the state of Florida and they are still coming," Johnson said. "What is also disturbing is that there are parents out there allowing their children to be victims."
Johnson urged parents to be more vigilant of what their children are doing on their computers.
To offenders or would-be offenders, Johnson said: "All those individuals out there thinking about this or are doing this, they better stop. Or we will be coming after them and we are going to get them."