Leer en espa\u00f1ol<\/a><\/p>\nLeaders at the Randazzo School, located at 2300 NW 39th Ave. in Coconut Creek, confirmed that Evan Michael Sands worked at the private school. A statement from the school did not elaborate on what the 26-year-old\u2019s position was, other than describing him as a \u201cstaff member.\u201d<\/p>\n
A federal criminal complaint states that the investigation into Sands, of Tamarac, began with a tip from the messaging platform Discord.<\/p>\n
That tip, sent to the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children and forwarded to the South Florida Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force in December, pertained to two child sexual abuse videos shared through Discord depicting girls who appeared to be 6 years old, authorities said. The videos, they said, were found in Sands\u2019 account.<\/p>\n
Federal agents said they applied for a search warrant for Sands\u2019 Discord account in January and got data from the company in March.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Discord data revealed that Sands, using the username, astraldrag0n#0, engaged in numerous conversations with children under the age of 18, some under the age of 12, where he solicited the children to send him sexually explicit images and videos of themselves,\u201d the complaint states.<\/p>\n
Sands, authorities said, also sent the children explicit videos of himself and identified himself \u201cby name and address and his place of employment.\u201d<\/p>\n
They said the search warrant revealed that he was also sending child sexual abuse images and videos through the platform.<\/p>\n
According to the complaint, agents executed a search warrant on Sands\u2019 home in the 8100 block of Northwest 105th Avenue on Thursday. They said they also pulled him over after seeing him leave before the raid.<\/p>\n
The complaint states that agents searched his phone and saw videos depicting the rape and sexual abuse of children as young as babies.<\/p>\n
It states that during an interview, Sands admitted to sending the explicit content on Discord and admitting to enticing children by giving them \u201cRobux,\u201d a virtual currency used on the online game Roblox.<\/p>\n
Agents said that Sands \u201cadmitted that he believed the youngest minor that he solicited\u201d was 12 and confirmed that he send children explicit videos of himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe estimated his sexual conduct with minors started in 2021,\u201d the complaint states.<\/p>\n
Sands now faces two federal charges related to the possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material, as well as one count of enticement of a minor to engage in illicit sexual behavior.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Randazzo School administrators said authorities informed them of Sands\u2019 arrest on Thursday and said they were \u201cshocked and saddened by this development.\u201d <\/p>\n
They said Sands \u201cwill not be returning to our school.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are fully cooperating with law enforcement as their investigation continues,\u201d the statement reads. \u201cThe safety and well-being of our students is our highest priority. Based on the information the U.S. Marshals provided, there is no evidence that any of our students were involved or affected.\u201d<\/p>\n
Records show he was scheduled to appear in Fort Lauderdale federal court at 11 a.m. Friday. <\/p>\n
According to court documents, prosecutors are expected to ask that he be held on pre-trial detention.<\/p>\n
As of Friday morning, Sands was being held in the Broward Sheriff\u2019s Office Main Jail facility on behalf of the U.S. Marshals Service.<\/p>\n
\ud83c\udfe0 News From Your Neighborhood<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMARAC, Fla. \u2014 Federal agents arrested a South Florida school staffer on multiple charges Thursday after they said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-247092","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\/247092","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=247092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}