JACKSONVILLE -- A school teacher, church mentor and a physician's assistant at the University of Florida are just a few of the men behind bars facing charges of soliciting sex from minors during the past week.
Investigators say 24-year-old Lenard Norman showed up to a Gainesville house looking for a 14-year-old boy. The second-grade teacher wasn't there for a private tutoring session and arrived with sex toys instead of lesson books. Norman is in jail and won't be going back to Metcalfe Elementary School anytime soon. The school fired him Monday and sent a letter home to parents informing them about his dismissal.
"I was very shocked to find out that we had a person like that working with our children," said mother Joyce Vinson.
Vinson lives across the street from the school and runs a day care service with many kids from Metcalfe Elementary.
"I think he should be put away and never allowed to be around children again," said Vinson.
The Alachua County Sheriff's Office and Gainesville Police Department teamed up for Operation Tail Feather. Investigators arrested 21 men between the ages of 19 and 65 after they posed as minors seeking sex on Web sites like Craigslist, Plenty of Fish and other online chat rooms. Undercover officers spent a week nabbing suspects at a Gainesville house at an undisclosed location.
"This is the lowest of the low. They prey on our kids in ads trying to get them to have sex with them," said Sgt. Todd Kelly with the Alachua County Sheriff's Office.
Travis Moody also showed up to the house looking for a good time. He responded to an ad titled "family fun" and expected to meet a man offering up his stepdaughter for sex.
"They were met by law enforcement officers with guns and vests taking them to the ground and getting them to jail," said Kelly.
Investigators say 26-year-old Jermaine Davis tried to flee and shouted, "Can you all just shoot me? My life is over."
Kelly says Davis was on his way to meet who he thought was a 13-year-old girl. Davis told undercover officers that he mentors children at area churches.
According to Kelly, other suspects showed up with sex toys, used and unused condoms, and bondage paraphernalia. But what was really disturbing, Kelly says, was that many showed up with guns.
"What's scary about this is you don't know what their intentions were. They came to fulfill some sort of fantasy and they could have had other motives that could have resulted in death in some of these cases," said Kelly.
