{"id":25383,"date":"2025-10-29T17:33:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T17:33:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/25383\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T17:33:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T17:33:06","slug":"charlotte-co-deputy-charged-for-explicit-tiktok-messages-with-10-year-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/25383\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlotte Co. deputy charged for explicit TikTok messages with 10-year-old"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>*WARNING. DETAILS IN THIS STORY MIGHT BE DISTURBING TO SOME VIEWERS*<\/p>\n<p>New court documents are revealing what led up to the arrest of a Charlotte County deputy accused of requesting nude pictures and video from a 10-year-old girl on TikTok.<\/p>\n<p>Deputy James Ford has been arrested and charged with three third-degree felonies.<\/p>\n<p>ALLEGATIONS:<\/p>\n<p>According to a report, the Coryell County Sheriff&#8217;s Office in Texas contacted the Charlotte County Sheriff&#8217;s Office on Oct. 28, regarding a man accused of inappropriate contact with a 10-year-old girl.<\/p>\n<p>The girl&#8217;s mother said her 10-year-old daughter was acting inappropriate and not herself.<\/p>\n<p>The report said the mother took the child\u2019s phone and told investigators that she found numerous conversations with a man \u2013 including nude pictures and videos of the child sent through TikTok.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators said the child was interviewed by a forensic examiner where she admitted to messaging and sending inappropriate pictures and videos of herself at his request. The man was later identified as Ford. <\/p>\n<p>According to the sheriff\u2019s office report, the girl said the man sent a nude picture of himself as well to her.  <\/p>\n<p>Deputies said the man also requested images and videos of her private areas \u2013 even asking her to make inappropriate gestures.<\/p>\n<p>An image attached to the screenname on TikTok matched to a Florida Driver\u2019s License found in the state\u2019s database system.<\/p>\n<p>That same day, Ford was brought in for questioning by the Charlotte County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n<p>At first, deputies said Ford claimed to not be familiar with the TikTok profile.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators said he later admitted he was communicating with the child through that social platform, and further admitted to inappropriate conversations with the child.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI f***** up. I f****** really bad,\u201d Ford told investigators, according to the report.<\/p>\n<p>Ford was charged with solicitation of a minor online, sending harmful materials to a minor, and harmful communications with a minor.<\/p>\n<p>He has been placed on administrative leave without pay.<\/p>\n<p>IN COURT:<\/p>\n<p>Ford virtually appeared in a Charlotte County courtroom on Wednesday morning. The television with Ford on it was facing the judge, so news outlets could not see the deputy. <\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors in the courtroom said they could not find a criminal history of Ford. <\/p>\n<p>The judge set Ford&#8217;s bond at $45,000 and he is not allowed to have contact with minors. Ford also cannot have access to the internet or social media. <\/p>\n<p>However, the judge ruled that Ford can use the internet for financial, employment and attorney communication purposes only. He has to appear in court for arraignment on Dec. 1 at 9:30 a.m.<\/p>\n<p>Prummell said Ford is on administrative leave without pay. <\/p>\n<p>The Charlotte County Sheriff&#8217;s Office said Ford is protected under Florida State Statute 119, which exempts the mugshots of former and current police officers from being released through public records laws. <\/p>\n<p>However, court documents filed has his mugshot attached to the booking report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"*WARNING. DETAILS IN THIS STORY MIGHT BE DISTURBING TO SOME VIEWERS* New court documents are revealing what led&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[692,209,211,210,853,11648,8219,265,264,1225,19242,266,19243],"class_list":["post-25383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-arrest","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-charlotte-county","tag-charlotte-county-sheriffs-office","tag-court","tag-crime","tag-fox-4","tag-jail","tag-james-ford","tag-local-news","tag-minor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25383","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=25383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}