Two Disney theme park workers and former assistant principal among 17 arrested in Florida child porn sting
Authorities in Polk County, Florida have arrested more than a dozen men in a child pornography sting. 17 men, as well as two Disney employees and a retired middle school assistant principal, have also been arrested by the police in relation to the crime. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd announced their arrests on November 8, which was done through an undercover investigation. In total, the men arrested face 624 felony charges.
Judd told reporters Friday that the operation, called “Guardians of Innocence IV: Fall Haul 2019,” was carried out by undercover detectives and a computer crimes team. At least one of the suspects was accused of trying to arrange a sexual encounter with a 13-year-old girl he had contacted on Facebook Messenger. He was arrested at a park where he had allegedly come to meet her.
Brett Kinney, 40, of Lake Alfred was an employee of Walt Disney World and had been working there for at least 15 years, Fox 13 reported. He also told investigators that he was addicted to child pornography and had been watching it for more than two decades. He was an entertainment manager who preferred children as young as 2 or 3 years old, the police said.
The other employee was Donald Durr, Jr., 52, of Davenport, also worked at Disney as maintenance staff and had been employed there for 20 years. He is said to have told the investigator, "I'm a pervert but I'm not a monster," according to Fox 13. While Kinney doesn't work for them anymore, Durr is on unpaid leave, the news outlet reported.
The retired assistant principal is William Hage, 76, of Lakeland. He was a former employee at Seth McKeel Middle School in Lakeland. He had worked at Polk County School District for 30 years before retiring approximately 14 years ago. When investigators nabbed him, he was in an active chat about how he has sex with children, authorities said. He had been charged with 252 counts of child porn possession, with images of kids as young as eight to 12 months old.
The men arrested had previous felonies, a combined number of 114 as well as 71 misdemeanor charges, the news outlet reported. 20-year-old Christopher Drennen of Bartow, one of the other men arrested said that if he didn't watch child porn, he would hurt a child in real life, Judd said. "This is just a cancer on society that we have to deal with. This is a cancer that I suggest will never be cured, we can only keep it under control with prisons," Judd added. "If the people in the real world saw what we saw, they'd probably take up arms against them."
"They don't change, folks. People with this set of deviant ethics and morals don't change," Judd said.