A St. Martinville man was arrested on charges of criminal sexual behavior Monday night after a vigilante group posed online as a juvenile girl and arranged a meet up in Lafayette, the Lafayette Police Department said.
Lafayette police officers responded to a disturbance call in the 200 block of Terminal Drive around 9 p.m. Monday and learned members of an organization called Predator Poachers had posed online as a 12-year-old girl and planned a meet up with a subject, Cpl. Kenderis Handy said in a statement.
The subject, 46-year-old Jerry Case Jr. of St. Martinville, arrived at the Lafayette Regional Airport to meet the juvenile girl he believed he was communicating with online, and members of Predator Poachers confronted him and then called police. Law enforcement was not involved prior to Predator Poachers’ emergency call, Handy said.
“As a department we are not actively working with them. There’s no conjoined effort between their organization and this department to actually go after predators,” he said.
Case was detained by Lafayette police officers while an investigation was conducted, Handy said.
Case was subsequently arrested on counts of computer-aided solicitation of a juvenile, indecent behavior with a juvenile, sexual abuse of an animal and pornography involving juveniles and booked into the Lafayette Parish Correctional Center.
Anyone with information about the case is asked to call the Lafayette Police Department of Lafayette Crime Stoppers at 337-232-8477.
