The feds are cracking down on the number of child sex predators across the country, taking in five Massachusetts men on trafficking and other related charges as part of a national sting that netted more than 200 arrests.
Operation Restore Justice, a “coordinated enforcement effort to identify, track and arrest child sex predators,” resulted in the arrests of 205 alleged offenders, including a former assistant admissions director at a college in Boston and four others across the Bay State.
Massachusetts US Attorney Leah Foley has vowed that the “pursuit of those who exploit children” won’t let up following last week’s effort executed by her office and in partnership with the FBI Boston field office and the Department of Justice.
“Protecting children from exploitation is among the most sacred responsibilities we have in law enforcement,” Foley said in a statement on Wednesday. “Each case serves as a difficult reminder that child predators are embedded in our communities.
“Some take on roles that increase their direct contact with children, while others prey on children from behind a keyboard,” she added. “But make no mistake, we will identify, arrest, and hold every one of them accountable, no matter how long it takes or how far we have to go.”
Jacob Henriques, 29, of Boston, has been fired as assistant admissions director at Emmanuel College after the feds arrested and charged him last Friday evening with one count of attempted sex trafficking of a minor.
Henriques is accused of soliciting a teen applicant for a “gangbang” and sending her porn in a stunning abuse of his post, according to federal prosecutors.
Others rounded up in Massachusetts include a 34-year-old Holyoke man registered as a Level 1 sex offender, a 75-year-old Agawam man, a 49-year-old Wareham man, and a 32-year-old Boston man. All were charged with either possessing or receiving child sex abuse material, or both.
“There are few situations more urgent than when a child is physically at risk, and as ‘Operation Restore Justice’ has shown, child predators come in many different forms,” FBI Boston Acting Special Agent James Crowley said in a statement. “As horrific as these alleged crimes are, they are not rare.”
FBI special agents and officers with the Boston field office arrested 26 people in April on child sex abuse material charges, leading up to last week’s Operation Restore Justice.
The feds pointed out that the nationwide collaboration included school leaders, registered sex offenders and members of law enforcement among the 205 arrested.
“The Department of Justice will never stop fighting to protect victims – especially child victims,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement, “and we will not rest until we hunt down, arrest, and prosecute every child predator who preys on the most vulnerable among us.”