Okay. Uh, good afternoon. Um I'm Penelis County Sheriff Bob Gualier and we're here today to announce um some arrests and two separate uh investigations involving um human trafficking in what is really uh the continuing problem of a bunch of adults uh within Penllis County and this is not a problem that's unique to Penelis County um exploiting um young kids uh for profit for sex and what is really truly a perverted mindset and one that is really sickening. And we will continue to investigate these cases and we will continue to do them diligently and continue to hold people accountable for praying on these young kids. And as I go through these, these are two separate and distinct investigations. They're not related. Uh and there are plenty others that are ongoing right now. And the fact that we have such a volume of these cases is probably one of the most troubling aspects of it. The first case I want to talk about uh involves the arrest of Julian Mononttoya, who's a 21-year-old uh who lives in Palm Harbor. Uh he was charged yesterday morning after a search warrant was executed at his home in Palm Harbor with one count of uh human trafficking and also for transmission of material harmful to a minor a first-degree and thirdderee felony. Um, another arrest was Hombberto Futes, who's 25 years old, and he was charged with unlawful sexual sexual conduct with a minor. And Jonathan Zel, 29 years old, also charged with unlawful sexual conduct with a minor. This is a result of investigation that began uh in early February of 2015 uh when detectives received information about a 16-year-old seminal girl who was involved in sex for money and she was recruiting other teens in the seminal area uh to engage in prostitution. All of the girls that she was recruiting were middle and high school aged. The prostitution involved the teens having sex with older adult males. This 16-year-old was introduced to prostitution uh by Isn't this wonderful? by her 20 20-year-old sister who told her that prostituting is easier than getting a real job and is an easy way to make money. Uh her sister worked at one of the adult clubs here in Penllis County. The original complaint that we received was from a young girl who was friendly uh with a 16-year-old and who became aware of the activity. And this friend was concerned about the 16-year-old. So, she came forward and made the original complaint. Detectives were able to interview the mother of this 16-year-old who lived in Semol and who was leading the effort, the 16-year-old, uh, to recruit other teens to engage in prostitution. Um, the mother provided cell phone photos from her daughter's phone that revealed her daughter naked and engaged in sex acts and text messages between her daughter and adult males discussing sex for money. The investigation revealed that the 16-year-old's prostitution was facilitated and promoted by someone identifying himself as Pimp Master Flex, who we now know to be Mononttoya. She met Mononttoya online through social media. There were numerous text messages between Pimp Master Flex and the 16-year-old girl. the 16-year-old uh herself and with the help of Mononttoya posted prostitution ads and here we go again on Craigslist. So, how many times we're going to have this uh discussion about Craigslist? And the next one we're going to talk about is guess what? Backpage.com. It's the same problem with the same players uh who are businesses largely driven offshore that are acting irresponsibly and just don't care. They can deny all day long uh that their ads don't promote, don't facilitate prostitution. And that's just a bunch of junk. That's a bunch of nonsense because that's what they do. And they can disguise them however they want. Go on there and look at them yourself. And for anybody, it's obvious as to what these ads are. So, Mononttoya uh using Craigslist encouraged the 16-year-old uh to recruit other teen girls into prostitution and so that he could also post their ads on Craigslist. So, what he was doing was getting this 16-year-old to engage in prostitution. He was helping her post her ads and he wanted her to get other young girls, middle and high school age girls, uh to do the same thing. The benefit that Mononttoya received from the 16-year-old was receiving sexually explicit photos uh from her that gave him sexual gratification. As a result of the prostitution ads posted on Craigslist Craigslist by Pimp Master Flex, the 16-year-old met with Zel, who was arrested yesterday as well, and performed oral sex on him for $70. Zel also received from the 16-year-old photos of her engaged in various sex acts. He was arrested on a warrant in Pasco County. Uh he was booked into the Pasco County Jail yesterday. As a result of other social media contacts, the 16-year-old met with fructose approximately four times during December and January of 2015 and performed oral sex on him for $25 each time. On one occasion, the 16-year-old had a friend with her who she offered to Frs for sex for money, but he declined. The investigation also revealed two additional 17-year-old and one additional 15year-old that were actively recruited to engage in prostitution by the 16-year-old after Mononttoya's request request that she recruit other middle school and high school age teens. In March of this year, detectives who were acting in an undercover capacity began electronically communicating with Matoya, pretending to be the 16-year-old. And he repeatedly asked for photos of the of the girls who the 16-year-old had recruited having sex with adult customers or John's. And he repeatedly asked for who he thought was the 16-year-old to recruit young girls for him to have sex with and who he could post on Craigslist. During these undercover discussions between Pimp Master Flex Mononttoya and the detectives, he told detectives things along the lines of, "Maybe we can get and set a two girls special. Go find those [ __ ] middle schoolers, too. You got to play with the older guys who crave the high school sluts." Mononttoya was clearly directing what he thought was the 16-year-old's prostitution activity. There's also one adult female for whom Matoya posted prostitution ads on Craigslist. All of these young girls, um, the 16-year-old, the three additional ones are all at risk troubled kids who've been exploited by Mononttoya and sexually victimized by Zel and Frutos and others. Since 2012, the 16-year-old has 50 documented law enforcement contacts, including numerous times of being a runaway, arrest for drug possession, thefts, and domestic battery. As I mentioned, yesterday morning, detectives executed a search warrant at Mononttoya's residence, 3290 Causeway Drive in Palm Harbor, where he lived with his mother. Um, he was arrested. Uh again, numerous computer and electronic items were seized and are currently being analyzed. Uh Mononttoya is still uh in the Penelis County Jail. So before I go on to uh the second case, you can see here and some of these text messages and these are messages that we received uh over the cell phone being used by the 16-year-old. And some of them were provided by her mother. Some of them were ones that we were able to get off the phone, etc. And as you can see here in this one, it's H. You need to find a rich old guy that you can, and look, you guys can edit this stuff out. All right, we're all adults here, so I'm just going to You need to see what it says, and you can figure out how you going to record it. You need to find a rich old guy that you can suck off and he would take care of you. But legit, if you're about it, look up some guys. But seriously, you should. But I need to move out by spring break. I might be with this chick, so maybe we could scoop and I don't want to [ __ ] you out. That's pit master place. That That's the guy who she's communicating with. Um over here, H. Love those older dudes. Love those high school chicks. Um and this one over here is again all about the prostitution activity. Now, we've blurred out the 16-year-old's face over here. These are pictures of of her. You can see over here on this on this board and this is uh from Craigslist and you can see the ads that were posted. That's the 16 year old girl on her faces board out. You can see her here in broad underwear. You can see her bending over backwards. Um again, going there's no doubt what this was about. This wasn't about just to meet with somebody and hang out is obvious prostitution. These are photographs also from her phone. This is a 16-year-old with this airsoft gun in her hand with pills, marijuana, and of course that board there is my puya uh Frutos who was arrested for having sex with a 16 year old. Same thing with Zel and the other victims as I'm calling them the other victims who uh were recruited by Mononttoya to engage in the prostitution activity. So, at the same time, Penel County Sheriff's Detectives are investigating this case. Um, we're also um investigating um two additional people, uh Dominique Drake and Serenti McGee. And what happened in this other case, again, this is totally unrelated. In February, uh, as a result of a child protection investigation, detectives learned that a young girl who was believed at the time to be about 15 was placing back page ads, uh, and offering herself for prostitution. The girl later turned out to be 17 uh, and she had been leaving living at a motel in Clearwater with her mother. The mother kicked the girl out of the motel and kicked her to the curb, put her out on the street. The girl has been a habitual runaway since she was 11 years old and has been a drug addict since she was 12. After being booted to the curb by her mother, the girl was befriended by Drake and McGee, who she met, again, common theme, via social media. The 17-year-old stayed with Drake and McGee at the Relax in motel in St. Petersburg. And between March 6th and March 9th of 2015, Drake and McGee posted prostitution ads on Back Page advertising the 17-year-old for in call sex at the motel. Four males uh who we don't have identified that if they we did their pictures be up here and we'd be charging them. Responded to those ads and arrived at the motel where the 17-year-old performed various sex acts for money. The charge was $60 to $80 for a half hour of unlimited sex with a 17-year-old. McGee stayed in the bathroom while the sex acts occurred, and Drake stayed in the parking lot. All the proceeds from the girl were given to Drake, and Drake provided her with drugs as payment for engaging in the prostitution. The common theme uh between these cases again, social media, websites like Craigslist and Back Page uh being used for prostitution and troubled teens turned into the streets because of troubled home lives and at least in one case a parent throwing her daughter to the street. And really, as troubling uh as all that is, most troubling is the selfish adult males who are praying on these kids for their sexual pleasure without a care as to the long-term effect and impact it has on these young girls. Really, these guys are perverted. Uh they'll be held accountable for their reckless acts. And others that are doing it today is that you're next. Uh it we've got to do something about it. We are. Uh but unfortunately, it's not ending. and we continue to have these cases, have these allegations and the investigations and uh the social media, these websites um have opened a whole new arena and it's not slowing down at all. So, um these people have been held accountable. Hopefully, these girls will get some help. Uh but there is so much more of it out there. uh you know and I tell parents all the time and speaking in public groups and people ask what they can do and it's important that kids uh are monitored uh in social media but it's also important the parents parent and they have to make sure that they're watching what their kids are doing and an answer is as hard as it is sometimes is not to throw that 17-year-old to the curb because when you throw that 17-year-old to the curb and you boot her um this is where she ends up.