A seven-day human trafficking operation in Polk County netted 213 arrests, including a California school board member.
POLK COUNTY, FL — A seven-day human trafficking investigation netted 213 arrests, including a California school board and a Tampa pizza chef accused of prostituting his girlfriend and brought along their 8-month-old baby.
Organized by the Polk County Sheriff's Office, Operation Traffic Stop involved 15 police departments, state enforcement agencies and social service organizations and resulted in 213 arrests for human trafficking and a record number of trafficking victims rescued, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said Thursday.
The Polk County Sheriff’s Office Vice Unit began the operation Feb. 6, establishing a social media presence in which undercover detectives pretended to offer prostitution services and arranged to meet johns at various locations around Polk County.
"We set up shop on social media and 200 people showed up," Judd said. "And for every one we catch, there are probably five more who didn't show up."
Judd called it a "massive operation" involving detectives from the Okeechobee County Sheriff’s Office and Auburndale, Winter Haven Haines City, Lake Wales, Lakeland, Davenport and Bartow police departments as well as the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
State Attorney Brian Haas of the 10th Judicial Circuit, members of the Florida Department of Children and Families and the social services organizations One More Child, Heartland for Children, My Name My Voice, Selah Freedom and the Children’s Home Society Child Advocacy Center were also involved.
"This operation could not have been possible without our colleagues from the police departments, I'm just telling you right now," said Judd. "It was a massive operation."
Representatives from those state and local law enforcement agencies as well as the social service agencies joined Grady during a news conference Thursday.
Lakeland Police Chief Sam Taylor spoke on behalf of the police departments that participated.
"On behalf of the men and women of the Lakeland Police Department, we were honored and grateful to be asked to participate in this," Taylor said.
He said it isn't about arresting men for soliciting prostitutes so much as it's about rescuing desperate, frightened women from a life of trafficking.
"The human trafficking aspect is what's important," he said.
Jodi Domangue of One More Child, which provides trafficking services to victims in 21 Florida counties, said her organization has been participating in human trafficking operations with the Polk sheriff's office since 2014.
"Every time we do these operations, more and more individuals are arrested and it's shocking that we're not learning what trafficking looks like in this community. Very rarely does trafficking involve kidnapping and it almost never involves a mom and her children being followed in a grocery store and being targeted," Domangue said.
"It most often looks like generations of cyclical poverty and individuals who are desperate to have their needs met for survival," she said. "It also looks like people coming over the border from other countries and having additional vulnerabilities like not being able to speak the language, or it's a young daughter who is being coerced online by an older boyfriend or may have shared a picture that unfortunately exposes too much and now she's indebted to that person."
Kadian Parchment of Heartland for Children and the co-chairwoman of the Polk, Highland and Hardy Counties Human Trafficking Task Force, said her organizations has been participating in these human trafficking stings over the past 10 years.
"We're grateful for the opportunity to be there and speak with them (the victims) when they are scared, in a different country where they don't speak the language, where they're in a situation when law enforcement is all around them," she said. "Having the ability to say, 'I'm here to help and I'm here to give you resoures,' is comforting to them at that moment. And I am grateful for the opportunity to show these people there is hope and light after being through something like this."
While some of the victims may be ashamed or embarrassed to share their stories, Parchment said, "What we do know is none of these women grow up dreaming of a life in which their bodies are sold for profit."
Judd said detectives began the operation by screening prostitution services and the social services agencies to determine which women were being trafficked or exploited, and found 24 possible trafficking victims. Some of the victims told detectives they were forced into prostitution to pay the people who smuggled them illegally into the United States.
Among those arrested was Scott Wooden, 60, of San Diego, who solicited sex for $200 while visiting Florida from San Diego, California, to help his parents.
"And where would we be with a human trafficking operation without an elected official?" Judd asked facetiously.
Judd said detectives later learned Wooden is on the governing board of the Del Mar Union School District, is married, has a doctorate degree from the University of Southern California and is a retired molecular biologist.
"Now don't you want this guy making decisions for your children," Judd said. "This guy knows better. He's supposed to be a leader in the community."
Judd said detectives also arrested Jessica Nicols, 34, of Spring Hill who was selling herself for $350 an hour.
"She showed up with a trafficking amount of fentanyl as well as meth and cocaine she was ready to sell," Judd said.
Jessica Burgess, 30, from Clearwater was also ready to exchange sex for money. She was released from the Florida State Prison on Feb. 7 after serving time for illegal drugs, and was arrested four days later on charges of prostitution and possessing meth.
Judd said Jer-Michael Bradley, 25, a convicted felon who works at Three Brothers Pizza in Tampa and received public assistance from the government, brought his girlfriend to traffic for sex. Judd said he also brought along their 8-month-old baby and a stolen gun.
Detectives also nabbed Zun Shao, 55, a software engineer from Riverview who has worked for the FICO credit score company for 28 years. He told detectives his wife was out of the country and he was lonely, said Judd.
Among the youngest arrested was Bailey Purcell, 21, of Temple Terrace, a wide receiver on the USF Bulls football team.
"You almost want to feel sorry for him because he's a kid," Judd said. "He said, 'Can you call my pastor? But whatever you do, don't call my parents.'"
Zachary Wright, 28, of Lithia, an unemployed software engineer, told detectives that his father is an attorney and a good friend of the police chief in Plant City.
Neon Vega Jr., 45, from Tampa works for the United States Postal Service. He brought with him a woman he planned to prostitute. Before his arrest, he'd been planning to take his kids to the zoo the next day.
When detectives called the post office to verify his employment, managers asked them to just say Vega works for the federal government.
At the end of the weeklong sting, 89 people had been arrested for soliciting a prostitute and traveling to an undercover location arranged by detectives to negotiate sex for money. Detectives also arrested 13 people for receiving money from prostitution or for aiding prostitutes, and they arrested 111 prostitutes.
“Not only did we arrest more suspects during this single operation than we have ever arrested before, we identified 24 human trafficking victims, the highest number of victims we’ve ever rescued during one of these investigations," Judd said. "The valuable relationships that we have with the social services organizations who join us in these operations make it possible for these women to get help and be emancipated from this way of life.”
Judd said:
- Five people were previously arrested by the Polk sheriff's office during a similar undercover operation, and two of those were just arrested during the September 2022 “Operation Fall Haul II.”
- Fourteen arrested are suspected of being in the country illegally (13 from Cuba and one from Mexico), and six of the 14 were identified as victims of human trafficking.
- Thirty-five of those arrested told detectives they are married.
- Detectives charged those arrested with a total of 68 felonies and 308 misdemeanors.
- Several of those arrested have criminal histories, including violent felonies such as kidnapping, robbery, aggravated assault and sex offenses.
- Twenty-two of those arrested told detectives they receive government assistance.
- Detectives seized fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana from those arrested during the operation and 54 people were charged with drug violations.
- Three of those arrested brought firearms to the undercover location, Judd said.
- The oldest person arrested was 68-year-old Dellbert Dinsmore and the youngest was 19-year-old Jamal Spike.
https://patch.com/florida/lakeland/polk-human-trafficking-sting-nets-213-arrests-rescues-24-victims
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