POLK COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE BECOMING NOTICED SINCE DOYLE CASE

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd was a busy man last week, above and beyond his usual administrative duties as the county's chief law enforcement officer. He was juggling media interviews with almost every major national broadcast and cable network, and a number of other local and state media outlets in the wake of his department's cracking of the Internet sex crimes case against now-former Department of Homeland Security Deputy Press Officer Brian J. Doyle. Today his department's efforts against online crimes is featured in the St. Petersburg Times.

There are a couple of interesting fact one should know about the team that investigates crimes on the Internet at this mid-level department in Central Florida.

First, the Computer Crimes Unit has only been in existance for nearly nine years, and consists of two deputies and a lieutenant working full time on everything from e-Bay fraud to identity theft as well as seeking out online predators. It's supervisor, Captain Rebecca Schreiber, says she could easily keep at least another ten deputies busy.

And this is not the first time that the PCSO unit has broken a big online case.

In 2000, a German man used the Internet to help lure an eighth-grade girl from Mulberry in Polk County to Greece. She was found five months later.

Konstantin Baehring, 35, was arrested by Greek authorities on charges of sexual assault, child abduction and exposing a minor to improper material. He was sentenced to eight years, three months in prison.

Last year, Polk deputies arrested Christopher Wilson, the creator of a Web site that garnered international attention with its promise of free access to pornography in return for pictures from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including mutilated bodies.

Wilson avoided prison by pleading no contest to five misdemeanor counts of possession of obscene materials and shut down the site.

There is a lot of work that needs to be done in apprehending those who would harm our children and perpertrate other crimes online. It's great to know that our local law enforcement agency has been and continues to be a leader in this area.