Limestone County Sheriff Joshua McLaughlin held a joint press conference Monday, Sept. 23, with Athens Police Chief Anthony Pressnell to detail a successful child exploitation sting operation that led to the arrest of multiple individuals last week.
“I am very proud of the working relationship that we have with Athens and the surrounding agencies,” McLaughlin said during the press conference at the sheriff’s department. “An operation like this takes a ton of manpower and without us working together there’s now way it would be as successful as it was.”
Pressnell reciprocated those same sentiments during the press conference, mentioning their collaboration on a similar sting operation in February which led to the arrest of nine other individuals. McLaughlin mentioned that these arrests were a continuation of that same operation, which they will continue with in the future.
“We have a very good working relationship with the Sheriff’s Department,” Pressnell said. “We participated back in February on this, and not just on this. We do other things with them, and them with us, throughout the year. So, we have a very good relationship with them.”
According to a news release from the LCSO, the purpose of the operation was to identify, investigate and arrest predators seeking to commit illegal sexual activities with children.
Numerous investigators and law enforcement officers went undercover as children in various online portals, such as chat rooms and social media, who were then targeted and solicited by the offenders.
“This is something that we have an ongoing thing with,” McLaughlin said. “We don’t want people to know when we are out there, or how we are doing it. Basically, we have decoys out there. We don’t solicit people, they solicit everything from us, so we stay very far from entrapment.”
Both McLaughlin and Captain Caleb Durden highlighted how easy it was for the offenders to reach their “decoys.” The pair asked parents to monitor their kids’ online activity during the press conference, calling on them to stay vigilant with who their children are in contact with on social media.
“It’s extremely shocking, wicked and vile what these folks are doing,” Durden said. “Parents, we implore you to please get involved in your child’s digital life. These devices that they have, such as their phones, computers and gaming systems, these people are looking for them there. Don’t let them be a victim by being exposed to this extreme evil at such a young age, please.”
Durden mentioned that the offenders agreed to pay to engage in sexual acts with children, and then traveled to a designated location in Limestone County to commit the acts. Durden also noted that law enforcement officers seized four firearms from the offenders during the operation.
The nine individuals who were charged with First Degree Attempted Human Trafficking, Electronic Solicitation of a Child and Traveling to Meet a Child for an Unlawful Sex Act are from Madison, Athens, Decatur (2), Huntsville (2) and Muscle Shoals, Alabama; Indian Town, Florida; and, Prospect, Tennessee.
All of the nine individuals were held on a bond of at least $200,000. According to the release from the LCSO; seven of the nine individuals have already been released on bond.
According to Durden, an 18-year-old from Huntsville was with one of the nine arrested during the operation. He was arrested and charged with Public Intoxication, Attempting to Elude Law Enforcement and Second Degree Possession of Marijuana. He has since been released on a $2,500 bail.
“We remain committed to protecting the children of Limestone County,” McLaughlin said. “We are not going to tolerate predators here, not in our community and not traveling to our community. Our goal is to make it so that any predator out there is scared to come to Limestone County, because there’s a good chance they are going to run into one of us.”