With 12 condoms and some marijuana in tow, a Florida man drove to Gainesville on Thursday expecting to have sex with a 14-year-old girl — but what he found was a swarm of officers, Gainesville Police said.
The confusion began when 23-year-old Jarrod Austin Lawrence Free began an online relationship with an undercover GPD officer posing as a young girl, according to a police report.
Free found the officer on a website and soon began texting and emailing the officer sexually explicit messages. He spoke about having sex and texted the officer a photo of an erect penis, according to the report.
“Do you send nudes?” he texted, according to the report.
Free traveled roughly 25 miles from the town of Bronson to Gainesville, planning to have sex with the girl, according to the report. When he arrived, he was arrested with the condoms, along with about a gram of weed, a glass pipe and a metal grinder.
Police arrested Free on Thursday afternoon on charges of transmission of material harmful to minors, soliciting a child to commit an illegal sexual act and traveling to meet a minor for unlawful sexual contact, along with possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of less than 20 grams of marijuana.
Authorities took him to the Alachua County Jail where, as of Friday evening, he remains in lieu of a $230,000 bond.
mkornfield@alligator.org
@merylkornfield
