Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel announced on Wednesday that 115 children were rescued in a new joint child sex operation by the Justice Department and FBI.
205 people believed to be child sex predators have been arrested in the last week, according to Bondi and Patel. The Justice Department and FBI say the arrests are part of “Operation Restore Justice.”
In the Southern District of Indiana, the following four individuals were arrested and charged with federal crimes: Raymond Robert Lapensee, Jr., 33, of Evansville (Possession of Sexually Explicit Material Involving Minors), James Dean Collett, Jr, 29, of New Albany (Sexual Exploitation of a Child and Attempt and Possession of Child Pornography), Eric Lee Dicken, 35, of Columbus (Possession of Child Pornography), and Beau R. Thornburgh, 45, of Lebanon (Possession of Child Pornography).
“These depraved human beings, if convicted, will face the maximum penalty in prison, some [for] life,” Bondi said at a press briefing. “We will find you. We will arrest you, and we will charge you.”
Patel said that the arrests included illegal immigrants and people in “positions of trust” like state troopers and police officers.
“If you harm our children, you will be given no sanctuary,” Patel said. “There is no place we will not come to hunt you down. There is no place we will not look for you, and there is no cage, we will not put you in should you do harm to our children, the prioritization of this administration.”
Bondi called the operation “historic” and “unprecedented.” She encouraged parents to closely monitor what their kids are doing online and be weary of potential predators.
‘An online predator can find them, I always say it’s from instant message to instant nightmare parents,” Bondi said. “They’re talking to your kids like they’re other children and they’re not. They’re predators. They pose as children. They get them sometimes to post explicit pictures of themselves after they talk to them and then in some cases, they even try to blackmail the children.”
The operation spanned 55 field offices.
AG Bondi also announced Wednesday that the FBI is actively working on the Epstein Files.
“There are tens of thousands of videos of Epstein with children or child porn, and hundreds of victims,” she told reporters outside the White House. “The FBI is diligently going through that.”
