The Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office sent out a warning Wednesday to parents about the dangers of social media applications after a 15-year-old girl from Pharr was sexually assaulted last month by a man she met on Kik messenger.
“If you are a parent, and your children or teenagers use smart phones, please take time to review all the social media applications they are currently using,” reads the Facebook message. “Monitor their usage, and always have access to their accounts.”
http://liarcatchers.com/pedophile_tracking.html
The message comes days after the arrest of 24-year-old Federico Perez, of Mercedes. Authorities believe Perez exchanged explicit photos with a 15-year-old girl from Pharr, and then threatened to show her nude photos to police or her mother if she did not have sex with him, according to a criminal complaint.
“Parents need to get involved with their children’s communication because they could be talking to a predator,” said Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office spokesman J.P. Rodriguez.
According to the Pew Research Center, 57 percent of teens ages 13 to 17 have made a new friend online. Most of these friendships stay in the digital space; only 20 percent of all teens have met an online friend in person.
Perez was arrested by sheriff’s investigators on Jan. 7 and charged with sexual assault of a child and online solicitation of a minor-sexual conduct, both second-degree felonies. Justice of Peace Jaime “Jerry” Muñoz issued Perez a $500,000 cash surety bond.
Perez bonded out Saturday after his bond was reduced to a $50,000 attorney signature bond, according to Hidalgo County Jail records.
Investigators were contacted by the teen’s mother on Dec. 22 who told them her daughter sneaked out of her house and was forced to have sex with a 20-year-old man. Rodriguez said Perez lied to the teen about his age.
At about 9 p.m. on Dec. 20, the 15-year-old girl was picked up by Perez on her street, then allegedly drove her to a field near Las Milpas Road, in the outskirts of Alamo and had sex with her in the backseat of his vehicle, the complaint states.
After his arrest, investigators found text messages from Perez to the 15-year-old girl describing their sexual encounter and wanting to have sex with her again, the complaint states.
“There is no such thing as invasion of privacy when it comes to the safety of our children,” said Rodriguez. “There should always be an open line of communication between parents and their children so they can talk about safety and the dangers they face in today’s world.”
Rodriguez said there has been a nationwide increase in the number of cases involving children being groomed using social media and messaging applications.
Between fiscal years 1996 and 2007, the number of online child sexual exploitation cases opened by the FBI catapulted from 113 to 2,443, a more than 2,000 percent increase.
In March, James L. Santelle was convicted of sexual exploitation of a child after he was arrested and confessed to FBI investigators that he used Kik messenger to contact hundreds of underage girls, some as young as nine years old, according to an FBI news release.
“As the power and popularity of the internet continue to expand, the number these cases opened — as well as the resources needed to address the problem — will likely continue to grow,” reads a statement on the FBI’s website.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children operates a CyberTipline at www.cybertipline.com that allows parents and children to report child pornography and other incidents of sexual exploitation of children by submitting an online form. The agency also maintains a 24-hour hotline at 1-800-THE-LOST, and a website atwww.missingkids.com
