Published Aug. 5, 2026at1:19pmUpdated Aug. 5, 2026at3:47pm
Five men, including a former Prudential Financial executive, have been charged with felony counts following an undercover sting operation in San Francisco in which officers posed online as children to identify adults seeking to meet minors for sex, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said Tuesday.
Jorge Nieto, 27, of San Francisco; Michael Pauter, 43, of San Mateo; Romuald Santiago, 32, of Daly City; and Reuben Teague, 50, of San Francisco each face two felony counts of meeting a minor for lewd purposes and two misdemeanor counts of arranging such a meeting. Teague, who worked for Prudential before starting his own firm, was also charged with a misdemeanor count of resisting or obstructing a peace officer. A fifth man, Jhonny Rodriguez Diaz, 37, of Redwood City was charged with a misdemeanor count of arranging to meet a minor for lewd purposes. All five have pleaded not guilty.
According to court documents, undercover officers from the San Francisco Sheriff’s Office, other Bay Area agencies, officers from central Florida, and the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center carried out an undercover chat operation on July 29 and 30. Officers communicated online with the men, who used graphic language describing their intent to engage in sexual conduct with children before requesting a rendezvous, authorities said.
Drone footage released by the sheriff’s office shows one of the men arrested by a group of officers after he emerged running from a 2-story blue home. The man had entered the building moments earlier before bursting through the entrance.