TAMPA, Fla. — A "major" milestone has been reached in Hillsborough County's effort to get child predators off the streets.
On Wednesday, prosecutors marked their 300th predator to be locked up in a five-year span. The announcement came just days after the start of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
In order words, Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren's office said an average of one predator was locked up every four days the courthouse was open. Warren announced his office's milestone Wednesday during a news conference.
"The child molesters and pedophiles that Hillsborough County alone has sent away are enough to fill an entire wing of a prison," Warren said. "We can sleep better knowing that they're sleeping in prison."
The announcement was made the same day as the sentencing of James Walther, who was tried for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old family member.
“These are quiet victories. Cases that we all know are so important, but that you likely haven’t heard of unless you live in the courthouse like we do," the state attorney said in a statement.
"But the survivors in each of these cases know. We want to make sure the community knows, too.”
Warren discussed six arrests out of the many that his office has conducted over the past months.
"My office handles 50,000 cases a year. The cases that we're going to talk about today are just a small fraction of that caseload," he explained. "But they're some of the most complicated, most emotional, most devastating and most horrific cases that we handled."
Michael Negron Santiago
- Sentenced to 25 years in prison followed by 10 years of probation for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old.
Brody Karcewski
- Sentenced to 25 years in prison followed by probation for life for sexually molesting an 8-year-old at Busch Gardens.
Reco Johnson
- Sentenced to 35 years in prison followed by 10 years of probation for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl.
Kerry Figuried
- Sentenced to 25 years in prison followed by 20 years of probation for sexually molesting a 12-year-old.
Lewis Matthews
- Sentenced to life in prison for sexually abusing a 10-year-old and pouring bleach on her to destroy evidence.
Sebastian Aquino
- Sentences to life in prison after repeatedly sexually assaulting a child over the span of several years starting from the age of 3.
"This milestone is significant, but it's about more than the numbers," Warren said. "It's about the victims, about our relentless prosecution of child predators, about protecting our children and about making our community safer one predator at a time."
The six men arrested represent only 1/50 of the child predators put away by prosecutors in Hillsborough County since April 2017.
“Prosecuting criminals who go after our most vulnerable victims has been a priority since I took office five years ago,” Warren said. “We reorganized our Special Victims Unit under new leadership, expanded its resources with more staff, and strengthened our partnerships with law enforcement and the agencies that support victims.
"The number of convictions and our conviction rate are two measures of our success."
People can search for sexual predators and offenders online from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's website.
Watch the full news conference below.