Photo: Bryan Cervantes
September 19, 2020 – Ventura County
As clear evidence that young people—homebound due to the COVID-19 societal restrictions suffered by everyone—have far too much time on their hands and are spending inordinate amounts of time online throughout the day, 20-year-old Los Angeles resident Bryan Cervantes was arrested on September 17th and charged with Luring a Minor for Sexual Purposes.
His arrest follows what Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Sgt. Jeremy Bramlette reported as “information that an adult male was communicating” via online social media with a girl he knew to be under the age of legal consent in “an attempt to lure the juveniles into sending pictures with sexual content.” More than a mere request for an exchange of photographic imagery, Cervantes is suspected of offering payment to the girls for the purposes of engaging in sexual intercourse.
Cervantes’ activities came to the attention of the Ventura County Human Trafficking Task Force, a cooperative effort involving personnel from the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office, the Ventura Police Department, the Santa Paula Police Department, the Simi Valley Police Department, the Oxnard Police Department, the California Highway Patrol, the FBI, and a handful of additional federal law enforcement agencies. Once on law enforcement’s radar, Cervantes became the subject of a search warrant of his residence.
That search, conducted on September 17th , revealed the extent of Cervantes’ online activities, and he was taken into custody. He was then transported to Ventura County Jail, where he was booked on multiple “luring” charges.
Photo: Courtesy Ventura County Jail Booking
