WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation tracked down and arrested more than 200 people accused of sex crimes involving children during a five-day operation, officials announced Wednesday.
“Children and their families now have a chance to heal. These are online predators,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said during a news conference with FBI Director Kash Patel.
The charges against the 205 defendants ranged from production, distribution and possession of child pornography to online enticement and transportation of minors to child sex trafficking, officials said.
“These depraved human beings, if convicted, will face the maximum penalty in prison, some life,” Bondi said.
She said that the operation – conducted by all 55 FBI field offices, the Justice Department’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section and U.S. Attorney’s offices around the country – helped 115 children.
Among those arrested were a former Washington, D.C. police officer and a Minneapolis state trooper, Patel said.
Jeremy Francis Plonski, a Minnesota state trooper and former Army reservist, was charged with producing child pornography while in uniform, Patel told reporters.
Linwood Barnhill, 59, a former officer with the Metropolitan Police Department, allegedly recruited teenage girls to engage in commercial sex acts and give him a cut of the money made, the U.S. attorney’s office said. Prosecutors noted in court documents that Barnhill is a registered sex offender and on supervised release after pleading guilty to two counts of pandering of a minor and one count of possession of child pornography in 2014.
Patel also noted that a man, who was in the U.S. illegally, was arrested for transporting a minor across state lines.
“These are just three examples that show you the extent and the depravity of these horrific crimes and we need to team up together with the American public to find the rest,” he said.
Requests for comment from Plonski’s and Barnhill’s attorneys were not immediately returned.
In her remarks, Bondi warned parents that they should be checking in on what their children are doing online.
“You have to monitor what your kids are doing. Whether they are playing games on the internet, on social media or any other websites that children, teenagers frequent, an online predator can find them,” she said.