Seventeen men accused of soliciting underage girls and boys to arrange to meet in Jacksonville for sex were arrested and two more men are wanted after an online, undercover sting organized by the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.
Sheriff
Mike Williams said these men thought they were talking to 13- or 14-year-old girls or boys in chat rooms and other online forums. When they went to meet their victims, the men were met by detectives and left in handcuffs.
The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office called it Operation DUVAL, standing for Disrupting Underage Virtual Abuse Locally. JSO detectives teamed with nearly a dozen other law enforcement agencies in the trolling sting.
The men accused range in age from 19 to 67. Most of them lived in Jacksonville, but some traveled from out of state, Clay County or Orlando thinking they were meeting a child for sex. Some of them had no prior criminal histories. One was a convicted sexual offender.
One of the men, Edward Arthur Stanley, 60, is a victim advocate for the Department of Defense in North Carolina. While in Jacksonville for a victim advocate conference, police said he tried to meet at a 14-year-old girl for sex.
One of those arrested was a 30-year-old Navy lieutenant who was picked up by Clay County deputies last Thursday.
Michael McNeil was accused of trying to meet 12-year-old deaf girl for sex.