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Alex Cabrero reporting Draper Police arrested a man Wednesday on 13 counts of sexual abuse with a minor. They say more victims could be out there.
Those counts include rape, sodomy and sexual abuse of a minor. Police say it all happened to one victim. They also say the man met the victim on the internet, and then in person.
The suspect, 34-year-old Jose Merino is now in jail. He lives in West Jordan, but the sexual encounters happened throughout Draper.
The victim is only 13-year-old, and police say the abuse has been occurring since at least January.
Police are worried that there are other victims throughout the valley. Investigators say Merino surfed the internet looking for girls, and was very smooth when he met them, convincing them to meet in person.
Unfortunately this is a type of case we are hearing more of throughout the country.
Sgt. Gerry Allred, Draper Police Dept.: "This is becoming so out of hand. You really need to know exactly what your kids are doing, and who they are talking to online. If that requires you to have passwords, or whatever you need to do to have some real hands on as to what is going on."
Merino posed as a 16-year-old on the internet, calling himself "Mike".
Police are not sure how he met his victim, but they say both Merino and the victim had profiles on myspace.com.
Police are now working on a search warrant to go through Merino's computer to see if they can find any solid evidence that there are more victims.
