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A 31-year-old Florida man has been arrested and charged after police say he hid a missing Ohio teen and planned to have sex with her.
The Marion County Sheriff’s Office announced in a news release that Detective Henrik Ocedo arrested Thomas Ebersole on Wednesday, January 3, 2024.
FBI special agents contacted detectives. Ostodo asked for help finding a missing 16-year-old girl.
Investigators discovered the girl logging into the online video game “World of Warcraft” from Eversole’s home address in Dunnellon, police said.
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Thomas Ebersole: Interfering with child custody, protecting an unmarried minor, traveling to meet a minor to engage in sexual activity, Wednesday, January 3, 2024, in Marion County, Florida. He was arrested on suspicion of doing so. (Marion County Sheriff’s Office)
Upon further investigation, authorities learned that Ebersole also had a World of Warcraft account that was accessed from that location.
When law enforcement contacted Eversole, he initially denied knowing the missing girl. However, when questioned, he allegedly admitted that he had driven to Ohio to meet the boy and brought him back to his home.
Ebersole told police he was in a relationship with a minor, kept her in his home and intended to eventually marry her, according to a news release.
Ebersole handed over messages on the online chat app Discord to law enforcement authorities. Police said Oste detailed plans to meet the girl in Ohio and engage in sexual acts, knowing he was committing a crime.
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A copy of the computer video game “World of Warcraft” is on display inside a Best Buy store on Friday, May 11, 2007 in New York. Authorities tracked the missing girl’s whereabouts after she logged into Thomas Ebersole’s World of Warcraft account from his home, police said. (Jin Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
He was arrested and booked into the Marion County Jail, where the sheriff’s office announced he was being held without bail.
Mr. Ebersole is charged with interfering with the custody of a child, traveling to meet a minor for the purpose of sexual activity, and protecting an unmarried minor.
Law enforcement agencies warn of a growing threat of children being sexually exploited via the internet.
According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCME), reports of “online solicitation of children for sex” have increased by 82% since 2021 and 113% since 2020.
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An Apple iPhone 11 smartphone with the Discord software app logo displayed on the screen, photographed on January 27, 2020. Ebersole allegedly admitted to meeting an Ohio teen on the chat messaging app Discord and planning to have sex with her. (Phil Barker/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
NCME is part of the growth financial sextortion, Defined as “a crime in which children are targeted for sharing explicit photos and then threatened to share the images with the child’s friends, family, or others unless they give money to the blackmailer.” There is.
An NBC report released earlier this year found that Discord, which has 150 million users worldwide, is being used by child predators to groom children, traffic in child sexual exploitation material, and manipulate minors. It detailed how it had been used to blackmail people by tricking them into sending nude images.
The report identified 35 cases in the past six years in which adults were charged with kidnapping, grooming, and sexual assault for allegedly engaging in Discord chat messages.
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Discord has community guidelines that warn minors to “not engage in sexual activity or engage in any behavior that endangers their online or physical safety.” The Platform also prohibits adults from soliciting or engaging in sexual acts with anyone under the age of 18.
Discord disabled 128,153 accounts and removed 7,736 servers for child safety between July and September 2023, according to the company’s Q3 Transparency Report. The company said it reported 51,916 accounts to NCME, an increase of 40% from the previous quarter.
Fox News Digital’s CB Cotton contributed to this report.
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