DELTONA, Fla. – A man from Cocoa Beach is in jail after investigators said he used an app to meet a 12-year-old girl for sex twice. The sheriff said the man posed as a teenager using the popular app Wink.
Volusia County Sheriff’s deputies arrested Brandon Donato, 29, on Saturday night after they said he drove to Deltona to meet the girl again. He’s facing a number of child sex charges and is being held on a $350,000 bond.
Body-worn camera footage shows several sheriff’s deputies taking him down outside the preteen’s home.
“I pray to God that that son of a (expletive) rots in his jail cell for what he did,” Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood said. Anyone accused of a crime is innocent until proven guilty.
Chitwood said the man posed as a 17-year-old and license plate readers showed he visited the 12-year-old twice before his arrest. The conversation spilled into Instagram messages. Her family members found out and notified authorities, sparking the investigation, the sheriff said.
An undercover detective later posed as the child to set up the arrest.
“These scumbags are adults, they know exactly what they’re doing and they are preying on the young and the vulnerable,” Chitwood said. “[They do this] to make them feel like they’re somebody or they’re one and they know exactly what they’re doing.”
The News4JAX I-TEAM looked at the Wink app which is described as “the best place to make new friends and more.”
Critics have called it “Tinder for teens.”
WJXT intern Kaitlyn downloaded it on Monday, signed up within a minute and quickly swiped on prospective connections.
It asked for her age and birthday but did not independently verify the information.
“No ID, no actual verification,” she said.
When Kaitlyn tried putting in a younger age, it took her to another app called Soda. This app offers live random chats where users have avatars concealing their identities.
Wink’s website says: “The safety of our users is one of our top priorities” and acknowledges “Adults may pretend to be younger and set up fake profiles to connect with children. They may attempt to trick them into speaking to them, or meeting in person. We have a zero tolerance policy for sexual exploitation. Any cases will be investigated and may be reported to law enforcement.”
“I think they have incredibly easy access, especially when parents are not monitoring and continuing to have conversations with their kids,” FBI Jacksonville spokesperson Amanda Warford Videll said.
She said parents need to be very careful about their children’s online activity, no matter the app.
“I think this is a lot of times the way that trafficking begins in some youth,” she said. “I will see youth reach out to make connections online, and then they end up potentially sometimes running away meeting people. And then that’s what leads to other trafficking issues.”
Having a conversation is key.
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List of the most popular social media and networking apps used by kids