WINTER HAVEN, Fla. — Following a week-long undercover operation, deputies say they have arrested six men, including a daycare worker, who showed up at a location in Polk County with the intent of sexually abusing children.
The Polk County Sheriff's Office – along with six other Tampa Bay area law enforcement agencies – launched a seven-day investigation on Sept. 19, authorities said. It required detectives to pretend to be children or guardians of children on social media platforms, phone apps and online dating sites to see who was preying and wanting to travel to meet children to have sex with them.
Each man who was arrested reportedly communicated with and solicited with detectives while thinking they were children or guardians online.
Deputies say the six men showed up to an undercover location in Polk County, all at separate times with the intent to have sex with children.
"We took some very bad people off the street," Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said during a news conference on Tuesday. "These are people that thought they were going to come to have sex with children."
Three of the six men reportedly wanted to pay adults hundreds of dollars to have sex with who they thought was a child. Those men were charged with human trafficking, the agency said in a news release.
Three men also brought condoms to the location, and those three told authorities that they were married and had children, according to the sheriff's office.
All of the arrested men were from the Central Florida area. In total, 22 felony charges were filed
Below are the names of the men arrested and what they were charged with:
- Jairo Muniz, 40: Charged with traveling to meet a minor for sex, attempted lewd battery, transmission of material harmful to minor and use of two-way communication device to commit a felony.
- Timothy Wellman, 36: Charged with traveling to meet a minor for sex, attempted lewd battery and use of two-way communication device to commit a felony.
- Feras Klisli, 49: Charged with traveling to meet a minor for sex, attempted lewd battery and use of two-way communication device to commit a felony.
- Douglas Da Silva, 46: Charged with human trafficking, traveling to meet a minor for sex, use of computer to solicit guardian of child for sex and use of two-way communication device to commit a felony.
- Trevor Walker, 33: Charged with traveling to meet a minor for sex, attempted lewd battery and use of two-way communication device to commit a felony.
- Douglas Cooley, 26: Charged with human trafficking, traveling to meet a minor for sex, use of computer to solicit guardian of child for sex and use of two-way communication device to commit a felony. He reportedly worked at an after-school daycare in Apopka, Florida.
"We will continue these operations, we're going to protect the children... from these kind of deviant actors," Judd said.