Florida mother shoots intruder who entered her home, threatened children: sheriff <\/a><\/p>\nDarling was charged with unlawful sexual activity with a minor, use of a two-way communications device to facilitate a felony and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.<\/p>\n
According to Tampa police, the investigation began after detectives received a cyber tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Investigators said that led them to a 16-year-old boy who had been communicating with Darling through a dating app.<\/p>\n
Police allege the investigation uncovered messages, money transfers, and explicit images exchanged between Darling and the teen.<\/p>\n
During Thursday\u2019s hearing, defense attorney Richard Escobar argued Darling believed the alleged victim was an adult.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis particular alleged victim claimed to be 19 years of age,\u201d Escobar told the judge. \u201cI can tell you that in my conversations with the detective, he admitted that the individual appeared certainly to be 19 or better years of age.\u201d<\/p>\n
Escobar also argued Darling has no criminal history, is not a flight risk, and should be released without additional monitoring requirements.<\/p>\n
The judge denied that request, setting bond at a total of $70,000.<\/p>\n
As conditions of release, Darling was ordered to have no contact with the alleged victim or other minors, remain in Hillsborough County, surrender his passport and stay off several social media platforms while the case is pending.<\/p>\n
Darling has been with the Tampa Police Department since 2019. Following his arrest, the department said he was relieved of duty.<\/p>\n
Like all criminal defendants, Darling is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) \u2014 A Tampa police officer accused of having a relationship with a 16-year-old boy appeared…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[129618,128776,58614,135,137,136,9822],"class_list":["post-310906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-contributing-to-the-delinquency-of-a-minor","tag-jonathan-darling","tag-national-center-for-missing-and-exploited-children","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-tampa-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310906","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=310906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}