Ohio Man Arrested, Charged with Attempting to Purchase Two Children for

Ohio Man Arrested, Charged with Attempting to Purchase Two Children for
Sexual Torture


July 25, 2007

~ Man asked undercover investigator if he
could drown her daughters for sexual gratification ~

TALLAHASSEE, FL ­ An Ohio man was arrested on feelony charges that he approached an undercover investigator online and offered to pay to act out his sexual perversions with children, Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced. Jeff Doland was arrested by authorities with the Attorney General’s Child Predator CyberCrime Unit after he flew to Miami, believing he was going to meet a mother of two girls, ages nine and 12 years old, and would pay the woman $550 to forcibly submerge the children under water until they became unconsciousness. During multiple internet conversations, Doland told the woman, an undercover agent with the United States Secret Service, that “dunking” was his particular form of sexual gratification.

“The allegations made during the course of this investigation are so heinous they are almost outside the realm of comprehension. Without law enforcement intervention, real children could have been in grave danger,” said Attorney General McCollum.

The undercover investigation began in April when the Secret Service agent was working undercover in an internet chat room, posing as the mother of two young daughters. Doland, of Uniontown, Ohio, approached the “woman” online and told her that he would pay her to allow him to dunk the girls, describing dunking as forcibly submerging someone under water until he or she is generally unconsciousness, then raising the person out of the water. He claimed he “liked watching the bubbles” and went on to send the undercover agent explicit images of child torture as examples of what he proposed to do to the two young children.

The Secret Service agent alerted authorities with the Attorney General’s CyberCrime Unit, who assisted with the continued investigation until Doland announced his intention to meet the “mother” in Miami. Doland was arrested when his plane arrived in Miami after again describing to another undercover investigator exactly what he wanted to do to the children, including a detailed explanation of how he planned to bind the young girls to the bottom of the pool of water. The arrest was made with the assistance of the Miami-Dade Police Department.

Doland will initially be charged with selling or buying of minors, a first-degree felony, and promoting the sexual performance of a child, a second-degree felony. The first charge is described in Florida statute as offering to purchase a minor with the intent to promote acts requiring the rendering of assistance by the minor to any other person to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing a visual depiction of the conduct. The additional charge is described as producing, directing, manufacturing or promoting the sadomasochistic abuse or harm of a child through torture and/or physical restraint for the purpose of sexual gratification. Doland faces up to 45 years in prison for the charges against him. The case will be prosecuted by the State Attorney’s Office for the 11th Judicial Circuit.

Under the new CyberCrimes Against Children Act of 2007, which was successfully championed by Attorney General McCollum and will become effective October 1st, child predators facing allegations similar to those against Doland can be criminally charged for soliciting the parent or guardian of a child who would then provide that child to the predator for the purpose of further sexual abuse. Sexual abuse of a child includes any sadomasochistic abuse of a child for the purposes of sexual gratification. The new law will provide for more effective prosecution and stronger penalties for this type of crime.

Bradenton house raided; sex ring suspected, Bradenton Sun, July 10, 2007

By ROBERT NAPPER

rnapper@bradenton.com

Bradenton Sun

Posted on Tuesday, July 10, 2007

BRADENTON --

Confidential informants working inside a suspected house of prostitution in the heart of Bradenton aroused enough suspicion of human trafficking to bring federal agents into the investigation.

Court records show informants told Bradenton Police and federal authorities of Hispanic prostitutes brought in from other countries illegally, living out of suitcases, being rotated from house to house, selling themselves for sex.

Police said they believe one of those houses operated in downtown Bradenton, in the 700 block of Fourth Avenue West, behind the U.S. Post Office.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials were the first to receive complaints about teen prostitutes brought illegally into the county selling sex in the house, according to court records.

Complaints that juveniles were involved also brought the FBI in to investigate possible human trafficking in the house, according to Bradenton Police Sgt. Cris Truluck.

During a recent raid of the home, none of prostitutes was found to be under the age of 18. But evidence did show an active house of prostitution, and the need for further investigation into possible human trafficking.

The raid

A raid of the home on June 28 showed enough evidence to arrest the man authorities said they believe ran the prostitution house.

Police charged Gumaro Valencia-Mariche on the day of the raid with prostitution and setting up a main place for prostitution. He is being held in the Manatee County jail on $1,120 bond.

Also, U.S. immigration authorities deported three people found in the home during the raid, including two female prostitutes, Truluck said.

All of the prostitutes in the home told police and the FBI they had been paid, and none was found to be under the age of 18, thus squashing the possibility of making a human trafficking case, Truluck said.

But based on the testimony of informants working inside the house, authorities said they may have just scratched the surface of a wider prostitution ring in Manatee, as well as across Florida.

"This thing is huge and organized. There are locations in Sarasota, Manatee, Fort Myers and Orlando," one employee informant in the Bradenton house told investigators.

And during the raid, evidence showed signs that tales told by informants of prostitutes being shuffled from house to house to be true, according to court records.

"There is evidence of people being brought in from other countries and being rotated around different locations," said Truluck. "This is still very much an open investigation."

The house

On Dec. 15, 2006, Truluck first met with an agent with U.S. immigration about the house on Fourth Avenue West, according to court records.

Immigration authorities were the first to receive complaints about activity at the home.

"The complaint was that this location was being used for prostitution and possibly juvenile prostitutes that were illegal in the country," Truluck stated in an affidavit.

After that initial meeting, citizens' complaints began to come in on the house, mirroring the initial complaint to immigration.

By February, police had the house under surveillance. One person pulled over on a traffic violation leaving the house admitted to paying for sex there.

Other surveillance showed dozens of men entering the home for short periods of time, then leaving.

By March, a man working in the house had been located and agreed to become an informant, according to the affidavit.

He told police men would pay him and would in turn receive a token or playing card. The men would then give the token or playing card to the prostitute.

That prostitute would then get paid by giving the card or token back to the informant at the end of the night, the affidavit said.

Another informant would sign on and tell similar tales of life in the house.

"The prostitutes told us they were paid. But it is very little money, which creates a vicious cycle where they have nowhere else to go," said Truluck.

On June 20, Bradenton police received a call from an anonymous person saying he had gone to the house to get a prostitute and had a gun pulled on him, according to the affidavit.

Truluck asked to enter the home after responding to the call. Inside he saw dozens of condoms, playing cards and "small suitcases."

"I also noticed there were small suitcases with a small amount of women's clothes inside them," Truluck wrote in his affidavit. "This was also consistent with information given that the girls working in this house are rotated every one to two weeks."

It was also enough probable cause to get a judge to sign off on the search warrant affidavit for the raid.

"With this information it is believed that a house of prostitution is in operation at this location. Both confidential informants in this case have been proven to give reliable information," Truluck stated in his affidavit.

- Herald Staff Writer Natalie Neysa Alund contributed to this report.