FELLSMERE — The Fellsmere Police Department has arrested a man accused of soliciting through text messages a 12-year-old girl for sex last month.
Authorities arrested Israel Carreon-Ramirez on a charge of lewd computer solicitation of a child at his place of employment in the Ft. Pierce area.
Carreon-Ramirez is currently being held in the St. Lucie County Jail.
According to the Fellsmere Police Department, the parents of the 12-year-old girl contacted officers after they became aware of the text messages.
Carreon-Ramirez’s girlfriend discovered the text messages on the man’s phone and provided photographs of the messages to the girl’s mother.
Through the course of the investigation, authorities interviewed Carreon-Ramirez, who agreed to answer questions. He told investigators that he did text the girl about sex via “Snap-Chat” and referred to the child as the “little girl,” according to the report. He said the girl told him she was 14.
“I never got with a virgin girl before,” Carreon-Ramirez said during the interview, according to Fellsmere Police. He said he had described his efforts to make the child comfortable about having sex with him, telling her to drink lime juice in order to not get pregnant. He also said that he tried to comfort her about having sex with him but told her that “it was gonna hurt a little bit” and there was going to be some bleeding afterwards, police said.
He also told investigators that he had fantasies about the victim but that he knew what he was doing was wrong.
“I knew it was uncool,” police reported Carreon-Ramirez as saying during the interview. “I don’t know why I did it, it just happened.”
He also said, “I knew it was not a good idea,” adding, “It will take me to a bad place.”
“This is my first time,” Carreon-Ramirez told investigators. “… I screwed up” and “I didn’t mean it.”
Authorities described the content of some of the messages, noting that the child feared becoming pregnant and that Carreon-Ramirez described a method to keep her from getting pregnant. In another message the man told the girl he would not hurt her, according to police.
An interview of the girl revealed how she became acquainted with Carreon-Ramirez, authorities said. She told investigators that she sent out a general message to people following her on her “Snap-Chat” account, to which the man responded, telling her, “You’re so pretty.”
From there, the girl said she thought Carreon-Ramirez got her phone number from his girlfriend. After that, the two exchanged text messages, which included the man’s request for the girl to send him nude photographs of herself and a discussion of his desire to have sex with her, authorities said. Another message suggested she skip school one day and spend the day with him at his home.
Carreon-Ramirez’s girlfriend discovered the text message exchanges after checking his phone, suspecting he was cheating on her. She and Carreon-Ramirez live together and have a child.
She told authorities that when she saw the text messages with the girl, she woke her boyfriend up and confronted him. She said the only thing Carreon-Ramirez would say was that he didn’t “do anything,” the report states.
After the confrontation, he called his parents in Ft. Pierce and asked they pick him up and take him back to their home. Authorities later tracked Carreon-Ramirez to his place of work in the Ft. Pierce area, interviewed him and took him into custody.
“Investigators at this time have no indication either way as to whether or not Carreon-Ramirez has solicited other children in this manner, but as a precaution, would like to hear from anyone who feels he may have,” Fellsmere Police said. “Please contact the Fellsmere Police Department at (772) 571-1360 so that a thorough investigation can be conducted.”