{"id":321952,"date":"2026-06-27T17:37:28","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T17:37:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/321952\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T17:37:28","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T17:37:28","slug":"santa-monica-police-arrest-florida-sex-offender-wanted-on-child-molestation-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/321952\/","title":{"rendered":"Santa Monica Police arrest Florida sex offender wanted on child molestation charges"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Santa<\/p>\n

Michael Lee Pope. Photo courtesy of Levy County. <\/p>\n

\n Published:
\n June 26, 2026, 10:22 am\n <\/p>\n

Last updated:
\n June 27, 2026, 10:08 am<\/p>\n

Santa Monica police arrested a Florida man wanted on felony charges of lewd or lascivious acts with a minor under the age of 12 during a routine patrol stop at a city park Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Officers assigned to the Downtown Services Unit were patrolling the lower portion of Crescent Bay Park at approximately 1:49 p.m. June 23 when they contacted Michael Lee Pope for a municipal code violation. A records check revealed Pope had an active felony full extradition warrant out of Marion County, Florida, related to allegations of lewd or lascivious acts with a minor.<\/p>\n

Pope was taken into custody without incident and transported to the Santa Monica Jail, where he was booked as a fugitive from justice under California Penal Code 1551.1. He was later transferred to the Los Angeles County Inmate Reception Center.<\/p>\n

Pope had previously evaded Florida authorities before his arrest Monday. <\/p>\n

In one recent case, Levy County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested him in 2025. In that case, deputies attempted to serve the same Marion County felony warrant for the same charges. <\/p>\n

Pope was arrested and faced additional charges for firearms possession after to prior felony drug convictions. <\/p>\n

Following that September arrest, Pope was held at the Levy County Jail on a $25,000 bond for the firearms charges and on no-bond status for the Marion County warrant. It’s not clear at this time how he left Florida or traveled to Santa Monica. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Lee Pope. Photo courtesy of Levy County. Published: June 26, 2026, 10:22 am Last updated: June 27,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-321952","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\/321952","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=321952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}