click to enlarge Photo via Lake County, Florida Sheriff’s Office
In a recent sex sting operation coined "Operation: L and P" conducted by Polk and Lake detectives, over 100 arrests were made for soliciting sex with minors and advertising for prostitution, some of which were Disney and other Orlando theme park employees.
The Washington Post reports that this two phase operation, composed of cyber and prostitution investigations, was conducted in a vacant Clermont house where officers posed as children, parents of children, or individuals looking for prostitution. The suspects soliciting sex with minors online were expecting to find children as young as 10-14 years old when they arrived and some brought sex toys, condoms or illegal drugs with them to the location.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd
held a press conference following the operation which detailed the conditions surrounding such an overwhelming number of arrests. "Their communications and desires were outrageous and deviant," Judd said. "All 22 [in the cyber phase] traveled to have sex and brought outrageous tools for deviant sex."
News Chief described that twenty two suspects were arrested during the first phase of "Operation: L and P" over the course of seven days,
three of which were employed at Disney, SeaWorld Orlando and Universal Orlando. During the prostitution phase of the operation,
another 79 suspects were arrested in connection to human trafficking or advertising for prostitution.
Unfortunately for Florida, this isn't the first time a massive sex sting has uncovered shocking results involving theme park employees. In February of 2014,
CNN reported mass arrests following a week-long investigation, named "Be Mine", that targeted similar crimes of soliciting minors for sex. 3 suspects in this investigation listed Walt Disney World as their employer.
County Sheriff Judd offered a final warning to sex offenders during his press conference: "We're after you. We're after you with a vengeance. We're going to stay after you, until we put you in prison where you belong. You're going to stay away from our kids," said Judd.