OCALA, Fla. – A St. Petersburg man was sentenced to 27 years and 3 months in prison for charges of production of child sexual abuse material and attempted enticement of a minor to engage in sexual activity, stemming from an undercover child predator sting in Marion County.<\/p>\n
MORE NEWS: Former Tampa police chief’s husband fired as code enforcement director after FDLE investigation<\/a><\/p>\n Timeline:<\/p>\n According to the State Attorney\u2019s Office, in July 2024, an Ocala police officer posed online as a 14-year-old prostitute during an undercover operation by the Marion County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n David Araujo, 57, was aware of the undercover prostitute\u2019s age and began a sexually explicit conversation with the officer, court records said.<\/p>\n Araujo mentioned a previous relationship he had with a minor.<\/p>\n Araujo was arrested after he drove from St. Pete to Marion County to meet with the undercover prostitute for sex, the State Attorney’s Office said.<\/p>\n Law enforcement searched Araujo\u2019s cell phone, finding child pornography that he had made with a minor victim on Sept. 25, 2023.<\/p>\n Araujo pleaded guilty to the charges on July 23.<\/p>\n The Source: Information for this story was provided by the State Attorney’s Office. The case was investigated by the Marion County Sheriff\u2019s Office, the Ocala Police Department, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Homeland Security Investigations.<\/p>\n St. Petersburg<\/a>Crime and Public Safety<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OCALA, Fla. – A St. Petersburg man was sentenced to 27 years and 3 months in prison for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[630,47,115,1157,202,204,203,199,201,200,628],"class_list":["post-71322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-crime-publicsafety","tag-fl","tag-news","tag-pinellas","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71322","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=71322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}