More than 100 people were arrested in a central Ohio child sex sting operation — including a doctor and a youth director at a church, police said.
Maj. Steven Tucker of the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office said that among those arrested, 24 of them were men who showed up at an undisclosed location intending to meet a child for sex.
“They show up with sex toys, they show up with lubrication,” Tucker said in a statement. “They show up with things that clearly somebody isn’t going to show up to a house with, unless they intended to engage in sexual activity.”
WBNS reported that those 24 suspects who showed up face charges of attempted unlawful sexual conduct with a minor and importuning.
Out of the group of 104 suspects, police have identified Austin Kosier, a 31-year-old emergency room doctor, and Christian Gibson, a 26-year-old former youth director at Redeemer’s at Courtright Church in Columbus.
Tucker said he was in charge of overseeing the investigation, where officers would often pose as boys or girls online to communicate with the men via the Internet.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said more than 30 law enforcement agencies participated in the sex sting operation.
Franklin County is not the first U.S. county to deploy multiple law enforcement agencies in a sex sting operation.
Sheriff’s deputies in Georgia recently arrested 24 people — 23 men and one woman — on child sex charges after a four-day sting operation targeting child predators.