PALATKA, Fla. — Former Volunteer Youth Group Pastor Caleb Roberts in Palatka was arrested Wednesday following a viral video involving a confrontation between him and a vigilante group.
The group, Operation 17:2, says the 26-year-old met with them back on March 30 after thinking he was speaking with a 14-year-old girl. They recorded the entire incident and posted it to multiple social media platforms, where it garnered thousands of views.
In the video, Roberts can be heard saying, “I want to go have sex with,” then pausing before finishing the rest of his sentence, “with a 14-year-old girl.”
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Garrett Gross, the man behind the operation, says men like Roberts are weak.
“We want to expose these people to the community,” Gross said. “People don’t know how prevalent it is in their community and what’s actually going on.”
Some text messages Gross says were exchanged between Roberts and one of his decoys read, “I like younger girl,” “A hookup is more passionate and rough,” and “What comes to mind when you think about sex?”
“We hope that parents are more responsible, because what I’ve seen is people are uncomfortable talking about it, so they kind of just ignore it,” Gross said. “Parents need to have more accountability, more responsibility with monitoring their kids’ devices.”
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But despite the video and alleged text exchanges, some are questioning why it took three months to lead to Roberts’ arrest.
Chris Carson, a defense attorney not associated with this case, says it’s because the police have to do their due diligence by conducting their own investigation.
“Because they are just people off the street and they’re not investigators, they’re not trained in investigative methods, in ways to obtain and preserve evidence,” Carson said. “The police kind of almost have to go back and reconstruct some of this in the way that they operate, that follows their methods.”
Still, Gross says three months is too long.
“What if Caleb was actually acting on his desires between the three months that he’s been out?” Gross said.
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Roberts is being charged with traveling to meet a minor, unlawful use of a two-way communication device, transmission of harmful material to minors by electronic device and soliciting a child or person believed to be a child for unlawful sexual activity using a computer or device.
He was released on a $55,000 bond on Thursday.
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