CINCINNATI (WKRC) – Federal investigators say a 42-year-old man charged with transporting a minor for sex was tracked from Ohio to Florida using cell phone data, surveillance video, and license plate readers after a local 16-year-old girl went missing in February and was later found with him.<\/p>\n
Stephen Negron is charged with transporting a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.<\/p>\n
Investigators say the teen\u2019s cell phone data showed the phone was turned off near the victim’s home. In that same area, a silver pickup truck registered to Negron was captured on security camera video.<\/p>\n
Authorities then used license plate readers to track the truck through Kentucky and into Tennessee. A warrant was served at Negron\u2019s home in Tennessee, where investigators say they found evidence of a new phone Negron was using. That information led investigators to Florida, where Negron and the teen were eventually found.<\/p>\n
The teen is now back home. Retired FBI special agent Harry Trobmitas said technology has become crucial in cases like this.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdvancements in digital forensics have just made a world of difference for law enforcement,\u201d Trobmitas said.<\/p>\n
Trobmitas also described how license plate reader networks can help investigators follow a suspect vehicle beyond a single jurisdiction.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce we have identified a suspect vehicle and we can enter that license plate number, we can track it throughout our local area, but there’s also a network of these things that we can provide the information to some of these larger networks that are out there,\u201d said Trobmitas.<\/p>\n
Investigators say their work also indicated this was not the first time Negron had been accused of similar behavior. They say he has a protection order against him out of Texas after he met a 16-year-old girl when he was 41. Documents in that case say he traveled to meet the teen and allegedly drugged her, sexually assaulted her, and threatened violence against her and her family.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that he was already involved in another case, similar activity, I would imagine that prosecutors are going to be able to, if it’s admissible, show the related offenses. This individual has clearly demonstrated that they cannot be trusted out in public,\u201d Trobmitas said.<\/p>\n
The federal charge Negron is facing in the current case carries a minimum of 10 years and up to life in prison. The U.S. attorney said Negron will soon be extradited to Ohio to face the charge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CINCINNATI (WKRC) – Federal investigators say a 42-year-old man charged with transporting a minor for sex was tracked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-225742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}