{"id":383827,"date":"2026-08-28T19:30:58","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T19:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/383827\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T19:30:58","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T19:30:58","slug":"man-charged-with-sexual-battery-on-4-year-old-girl-in-st-petersburg-sppd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/383827\/","title":{"rendered":"Man charged with sexual battery on 4-year-old girl in St. Petersburg: SPPD"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 The St. Petersburg Police Department (SPPD) has charged a 26-year-old man with sexually abusing a 4-year-old child, the department said Friday.<\/p>\n<p>SPPD detectives started an investigation on August 5 after the child allegedly told her parents she was sexually abused by a man who the family knew, according to a news release.<\/p>\n<p>The incident was initially reported in Pasco County, but investigators determined the reported abuse occurred in St. Petersburg, SPPD said.<\/p>\n<p>Police arrested Michael Phillips, 26, on charges of sexual battery on a child under the age of 12, per the release.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/MICHAEL.PALUSKA.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Puerto Rican kikiriki chickens winning hearts across Florida<\/p>\n<p>Puerto Rican kikiriki chickens are becoming one of Florida&#8217;s fastest-growing pet trends. A Tampa Bay breeder tells Tampa Bay 28 reporter Michael Paluska the demand for the miniature birds has exploded.<\/p>\n<p>Puerto Rican kikiriki chickens winning hearts across Florida<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 The St. Petersburg Police Department (SPPD) has charged a 26-year-old man with sexually abusing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[6866,19243,1338,596,107032,24834,202,204,203,199,201,200,5910,3670,208],"class_list":["post-383827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-michael-phillips","tag-minor","tag-pasco-county","tag-pinellas-county","tag-pinellas-news","tag-sppd","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa-bay-28","tag-tampa-bay-local-news","tag-wfts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383827","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=383827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}