CLAY COUNTY, Fla. — Moms are speaking out after they say they were never informed of the arrest of a volunteer wrestling coach who coached their children at multiple schools in Clay County.
Mikel Detoro, 44, was arrested on April 30 during a Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office investigation dubbed Operation Checklight. His arrest report shows he drove to a pre-arranged location to meet up with someone he thought was a 14-year-old boy.
“Detectives discovered that his vehicle appeared equipped for child exploitation,” Sheriff T. K. Waters said. “The seats of the Wrangler had been folded down, the interior was carpeted with blankets, and disturbingly, the interior of the Toro’s vehicle, or Wrangler, was outfitted with multiple cameras.”
The arrest report shows that Detoro had “an undetermined amount of cameras, SD cards, and a tablet” in his car.
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Ginger Phillips, Cheyenne Evans and Tawnya Darnell all have sons who were coached by Detoro this past wrestling season at Wilkinson Junior High School and an afterschool program hosted at Ridgeview High School in Clay County. During the season, their sons were 13 and 14 years old.
“This man was literally in contact with our children in this portable, wrestling with them, you know, showing them moves, touching them, just doing these skin checks,” Darnell said. “It’s disgusting.”
“He would take them into the closet alone, down to their underwear, with their arms out to inspect their body,” Evans said.
Phillips, Evans and Darnell say that no one at either of the schools Detoro volunteered at informed them of his arrest. Instead, they found out after our coverage of JSO’s undercover operation.
“That’s almost a month and a half that I could have made contact and had conversations with my child to say, ‘Were you involved in this? Did this happen to you? Did he make comments to you? Did he send you text messages?” Darnell said.
“He teaches five to 12-year-olds [in] youth group wrestling, and that runs year-round,” Evans said. “So, what about those parents?”
“We found it in a few minutes,” Phillips said. “His arrest reports show that he was interested in young boys, and you have him wrestling with young boys.”
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Detoro was arrested back in 2008 for allegedly grabbing a minor’s arm and pulling it behind his back without his consent. When the minor got out of his hold, the arrest warrant says Detoro threw the victim’s hat at him, striking him between his eyes. That minor also told authorities that Detoro “likes to put his hands on other boys that go to the school.”
He also pled guilty to two counts of “interference with Child Custody” after he picked up a 13 and 14-year-old at 11:30 p.m. without the parents’ knowledge. The report says he was caught in the back of a closed park with the children with sexual stimulation objects/devices in his car, along with male enhancement pills.
Another arrest warrant from 2019 shows that he was put on felony probation on April 28, 2018, which prohibited him from being in contact with minor children. He violated this probation after he began “volunteering in different capacities” throughout Calvary Christian Church, which has a private school, Calvary Christian Academy, attached to it.
That report shows that he followed a 14-year-old boy to his car along with two other minors and the victim’s mother. It reads that Detoro put the 14-year-old in a headlock from behind, which made it so the victim could not enter the car. It wasn’t until the victim’s mother physically got out of the car and confronted Detoro that he let go of the victim.
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Detoro is currently in custody and being held on a $1.5 million bond. He’s being charged with solicitation of a child via computer to engage in sexual conduct, travel to meet after using a computer to lure a child and the unlawful use of a two-way communication device.
We’ve reached out to the Clay County School Board for comment, but because of the holiday, we have not yet heard back. We also reached out to Iron Forge Wrestling Academy, the afterschool program moms say Detoro volunteered at, and also have not heard back.
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