Whatever came of “Operation March Sadness”?
I was curious… This past March, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd stood before a poster board at one of his now-famous press conferences, talking about the success of his six-day human trafficking sting cutely called “Operation March Sadness II”.
If you saw the press release and didn’t know better, this seemed to be a huge deal! News4Jax‘s headline was “Operation March Sadness II leads to 108 arrests on human trafficking charges”. Click Orlando‘s headline was, “Over 100 arrested in child predator sting operation” and NBC Affiliate WFLA‘s headline was, “4 Disney Employees Arrested in Polk County Human Trafficking Campaign.” Based on the news report and the seriousness of the press conference, one would question the sense of stepping foot in central Florida because the probability of being molested seemed inevitable.
We already exposed the truth about this “Operation” in a post 5 months ago (see: https://floridaactioncommittee.org/the-sad-operation-march-sadness/) but out of curiosity we wanted to do a quick follow up to see how these prosecutions are going.
I was particularly curious about the guy featured on cbsnews.com in their, “Retired Cook County Judge among more than 100 arrested in human trafficking sting in Florida.” A retired judge accused of human trafficking?!?! Clearly he must have gone away for life, right?
Hardly. I don’t want to further embarrass the guy by including his name or case number here, but he got a withhold of adjudication for “soliciting another to commit a lewd act”, 12 months “mail-in probation” and 100 hours community service. He was not human trafficking anyone but whenever someone googles his name from now on it’ll sure look like he was, headlines, mugshot and all!
The poor guy was very likely bullied into accepting a plea deal, like most of them. He was on an adult hookup platform where no one expects to find minors or would even know how to find minors in those places. These are adult content places where adults go to find other adults to engage in sexual conversations, etc., and law enforcement knows this very well. That’s why they target men in those places to entrap them to use for this scam.
Ironically, it is those running these sting operations on adult hookup platforms to entrap men to create these fake child predator cases that are the real traffickers. To exploit another person’s vulnerabilities for the purpose of trapping and imprisoning them, to use them to make a profit, is a form of human trafficking that has not yet been acknowledged. Law enforcement has been entrapping men in those places for the purpose of using them to make a profit for themselves and obtaining other benefits like helping their own careers, etc. They are the real traffickers. They have simply been disguising their human trafficking operations as the work of trying to protect children from online predators. Don’t all big time traffickers have some kind of cover up like that?
Not sure where your information came from, but he wasn’t charged or accused of anything having to do with a minor. He was accused of hiring an adult escort. Let’s not accuse the guy of something worse than the police did, please.
Great job, FAC! Keep ‘em honest.
Does anyone know whether ANY convictions for human trafficking have come out of this? Any at all?? What about other serious convictions?
That’s a good question… Of the 108 arrested, there was only ONE (1) charged with Human Trafficking. Yes ONE.
The case is still pending. The suspect was charged with “engaging in, or attempt to engage in, or benefit financially” from the commercial sexual activity of another adult female (she also had cocaine and drug paraphernalia). No clue what the outcome will be and if she’s convicted we’re not saying this is not terrible, it is, but it’s hardly forcing abducted kids to work as sex slaves.
So this may be an old-school vice operation, overlaid with the Human Trafficking label so as to qualify for funding, amirite?
Exactly. Re-read what we originally wrote about this when it happened: https://floridaactioncommittee.org/the-sad-operation-march-sadness/
When 99% of the people arrested in a “human trafficking” operation were not charged with human trafficking… it’s not a successful human trafficking operation. It’s a failed one.
You don’t conduct a DUI checkpoint, arrest 100 people who were drunk, one of which was in the country illegally and announce “100 arrests made in immigration raid”
That is true unless getting a PR boost was the purpose of the DUI checkpoint. Not many people will actually follow the results after the initial headline. This is also true of “Operation March Sadness.”
We have a political system that is out of control. I hope that one day FAC will recognize that and take on some of these politicians for being among the registered citizens worse enemies. We cannot win a victory as long as we have enemies roaming about making life miserable for those who long ago paid their debt and just want to live a normal, productive lifestyle. These politicians thrive on promulgating lies about registered citizens.
I don’t understand why you want to protect ex-judge XXXXX XXXXXXX name. His name needs to be out there in order for him to get any motivation to fight against these unreasonable registration laws.
Which begs another question. If he was convicted in Florida, why isn’t his name on the FDLE RSO website?
For the same reason you use “GL” and not your full name. Do you really think he needs more results associating him with this than already exist?
Your comment was edited to remove his name. Because we are not in the “name and shame” game.
He was not convicted. He received a withhold of adjudication for a misdemeanor. He would not be on the FDLE RSO website. He should be on the “Solicitation for Prostitution” registry (see: https://floridaactioncommittee.org/whatever-happened-to-the-solicitation-for-prostitution-registry/) but he is not. Don’t know why but better for him.
We don’t publicly shame people as motivation to join our cause. Nor do we target judges or ex-judges.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd just loves to be in the spotlight to ensure his reelection. The people that see him on TV and read the headlines and elect him do not understand the arrest and the actual charge, if they even get charged at all, don’t have to be the same. Add to that “Innocent until proven guilty” went out the window along time ago, at least where “sex offenses” are concerned, and all he has to do is grandstand to get reelected. It is said we live in a country where an overwhelming majority of citizens are completely ignorant about the law.
Alan, how true!!