The seven law enforcement agencies and the U.S. Attorney’s Office that make up the Northeast Florida INTERCEPT Task Force reunited last week to report the first-year success of their program to target those suspected of human trafficking and child exploitation.

In one year, the group got 21 convictions, which led to 18 sentences of more than 148 years in prison.

“These agency executives formed a board together to put this together,” said Clay County Sheriff’s Office Undersheriff Ron Lendvay, Chairman and Executive Board member of the NEFL INTERCEPT.

“So, this is a true group effort and a team, not just spearheaded by a particular agency. INTERCEPT work to combat these crimes is difficult, dangerous, detail oriented and very technical, but it’s absolutely vital to keeping our young and vulnerable safe from exploitation. All the partners you see here today are committed to working together as the intercept Task Force to amplify our successes, erase jurisdictional boundaries, and take a regional approach to protecting the vulnerable in Northeast Florida,” Lendvay said. 

The task force consists of the Clay, St. Johns, Jacksonville, Nassau and Putnam county sheriff’s offices, Homeland Security Investigations-Jacksonville and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

The group organized on March 2 last year. Since then, the contributed deputies have investigated 663 cyber tips from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, initiated 583 investigations and issued 85 search warrants. They’ve examined 224 electronic devices and 6.3 million images and videos containing more than 75,000 videos and images of child sexual activity.

“The focus of INTERCEPT is human trafficking and online, online sexual exploitation of children,” Lendvay said.

“Human trafficking involves the use of force, fraud or coercion to obtain some labor or commercial sex act from another. The key element in human trafficking cases is not the movement of the victim but rather the exploitation of that thing.

“The online sexual exploitation of children manifests itself in various forms, from online enticement to the distribution of child sexual abuse material to sextortion. Online enticement involves an individual communicating with a child over the internet with the intent to commit a sexual offense. Offenders who traffic child sexual abuse material share photo and video files across the internet and dark web and victimize the child each time the image of the reviews is shared.

“Sextortion occurs when a minor has shared an explicit themselves with someone they mistakenly trusted, who then blackmails them into producing additional sexual content, meeting for sexual activity, or paying to keep their images from being shared. The disturbing reality is that the web-based platforms and applications we use daily to connect and share information, including social media, online gaming and email, are all used for illegal and illicit purposes,” Lendvay said. 

Florida Rep. Sam Garrison (R-Fleming Island) helped secure $1 million in funding in the current budget for NEFL INTERCEPT for a forensic lab.

“Our brand is family. We believe in a culture of life and that every life and child matters,” he said. “We’re going to fight for those kids, especially the ones that are forgotten, the ones that find themselves in these situations.”

Middle District of Florida U.S. Attorney Roger Handberg is responsible for prosecuting many of the offenders. He singled out three cases – two from Clay County – as successes from the program’s first year.

He mentioned the 20-year sentence for former Orange Park Athletic Association softball coach Andrew Lynn Overheul, who was caught using his cellphone recording a 12-year-old girl taking a shower at his house. When investigators from CCSO seized his phone, they found “hundreds” of other images of girls, Handberg said.

Another case involved former JSO offer Alejandro Carmona-Fonseca, who was sentenced to 12 years for attempting to entice a 16-year-old boy to send inappropriate photos after meeting him at the Lake Asbury gym.

“The work that you are doing is saving lives, and it’s resulting in victims being rescued and offenders being brought to justice,” Handberg said. “The Northeast Florida INTERCEPT Task Force did not hit the ground running; they hit the ground sprinting.

“There’s much that I can say about the dedication of the investigators and prosecutors who tackle these disturbing and often heartbreaking cases. I’ll simply say to them, ‘Thank you.’ Thank you for the hard work that you do. Thank you for the long hours and late nights that you put into investigating your cases.”

There have been 31 arrests and 16 indictments for child exploitation and human trafficking in the past year. There also have been eight arrests resulting from sexual battery, bestiality and video voyeurism, according to NEFL INTERCEPT figures.