Palm Coast, FL - Twelve men were arrested for soliciting prostitution after Flagler County Sheriff's Office (FCSO) conducted an undercover sting at a Palm Coast hotel on Wednesday and Thursday evening.
The sting operation, dubbed "Operation Red Light to Green Roof," was enacted by FCSO's Special Investigations Unit in response to complaints of prostitutes advertising their services in Flagler County.
FCSO used the website Backpage.com through an undercover deputy in order to conduct the investigation. Backpage.com is well-known to law enforcement as a site where prostitution is solicited. “After posting the ad on Backpage, our undercover officer’s phone was ringing off the hook,” Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly explains. “This shows us that the desire for prostitutes is present in Flagler County. Our undercover deputy received over one hundred phone calls from both men and women and numerous text messages displaying genitalia.”
At least twelve men responded to the advertisement and agreed to meet up at the Palm Coast location. One defendant, Jeffrey Nowden Jr., came to the hotel with approximately 4.2 grams of crack cocaine and 1.5 grams of a mixture of heroin and fentanyl. He offered the undercover deputy crack cocaine in exchange for sex.
Below are the names of twelve men, all arrested for soliciting prostitution during the operation:
- Jason William Brewer
- Augusto Dacosta
- Steven Omega Gray
- Stephan Lee Hutton-Debaets
- Omer Muammer Inci
- Brent Keith Murray
- Jeffrey Nowden Jr.
- Quacy Delano Pinder
- Michael Dimitri Rendino
- Adolfo Renteria
- Raphael Santiago Jr.
- Shawn William Seaverns
The Sheriff's Office also used the website to try to track down women who would use the site to advertise prostitution services, but FCSO says that none of the women showed up to meet the undercover officer. They lived in surrounding counties and cited "transportation issues."
“The good news for Flagler County is that it does not appear we have prostitutes in our community. The bad news is that there are many people from Flagler County trying to solicit prostitution,” says Staly.
All photos courtesy FCSO.
Featured photo is a surveillance photo of one man paying the undercover deputy.
Copyright Southern Stone Communications 2017.
