Thirty-five men were arrested over the past several days during a week-long sting to catch alleged Internet child sex predators.
“Operation Green Shepherd II,” a follow-up to the 43-arrest sting operation of the same core name conducted by the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office in September, once again involved undercover officers posing as children age 14 and younger and chatting with subjects who ended up wishing to meet the minor at an unidentified house in Manatee County.
Most arrested will be charged with travel to seduce, solicit or entice a child to commit a sexual act, use of a computer to seduce and attempted lewd and lascivious, Steube said.
Det. Jaime Rivera, with both the sheriff’s office Crimes Against Children Unit and Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, was one of the “chatterers” in the operation — one of the people who worked on a computer posing as a child during the sting.”
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