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OGDEN — Five people were recently arrested during an undercover sting operation by Weber County Sheriff's investigators targeting potential online child predators.
The sheriff's office announced Tuesday that on March 26, while working with other local, state and federal agencies, deputies "conducted a proactive undercover operation utilizing various online social media applications to locate and identify suspects that use the internet to agree to meet minors under the age of 14 for sexual activity."
The operation lasted only a few hours but resulted in the arrests of five men, all for investigation of enticing a minor:
- Randall Nelson, 30, of Clinton.
- Gerardo Medina, 25, of Clearfield.
- William Davis, 56, of Ogden.
- Rumaldo Duran, 26, of Ogden.
- Cameron Sandoval, 25, of Roy, who was arrested for investigation of an additional charge of dealing in harmful materials to a minor.
The men believed they were talking to a 13-year-old online. Sometimes agents posed as a girl, other times a boy, according to various jail reports.
When Nelson was arrested, he told investigators "that he had a problem and said that around age 25 he realized that he was attracted to underage girls. He also stated that he had been questioned by detectives in the past for enticing a minor and providing the girl with alcohol," according to a Weber County Jail booking report.
Davis was convicted of sex abuse of a child in 2002, according to court records. In exchange for his guilty plea, five other counts of sex abuse of a child were dismissed, according to court records. He was sentenced to five years to life at the Utah State Prison.
Correction: The headline on a previous version implied five men who were arrested are from Weber County. Two are from Davis County.
