Florida child predator sentenced to 40 years in federal prison

TAMPA, Fla. — A Florida man was sentenced yesterday to 40 years in federal prison for the production, receipt and distribution of child pornography. This case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office and the Webster, Texas, Police Department.

According to court documents, from at least December 2012 through his arrest May 1, 2014, Melvin Barber Bridgers III, 34, of Tarpon Springs, formerly of Greenville, North Carolina, used multiple Facebook accounts to pose as a young teenage girl and befriend other girls between the ages of 10 and 16 years old. After befriending the minors, he engaged in online chats with them and used manipulation, coercion, threats and extortion to compel the minors to send him sexually graphic photographs through Facebook. Bridgers then threatened the minor victims with exposing the sexually graphic photos to their parents, or to other Internet users, in order to extort more sexually graphic photographs and videos from them.

Bridgers, who moved to Tarpon Springs from North Carolina in the fall of 2013, came to law enforcement’s attention when a 12-year-old victim in the Houston, Texas, area reported the Facebook activity to her mother after Bridgers threatened to expose that victim unless she sent him sexually explicit photographs of her 7-year-old sister. The victim’s mother then contacted the authorities.

On May 1, 2014, law enforcement executed a federal search warrant at Bridgers’s residence and obtained computer media containing numerous chat logs with the minor victims, as well as over 28,000 images and videos containing child pornography. Law enforcement agents estimate that over a two-year period, Bridgers attempted to make contact with and sexually extort, or “sextort,” thousands of young girls on Facebook. To date, approximately 129 of Bridgers’ victims have been positively identified, making this one of the largest online child “sextortion” cases prosecuted in the United States. Bridgers pleaded guilty Dec. 11, 2014.

This investigation was conducted under HSI’s Operation Predator, an international initiative to protect children from sexual predators. Since the launch of Operation Predator in 2003, HSI has arrested more than 10,000 individuals for crimes against children, including the production and distribution of online child pornography, traveling overseas for sex with minors, and sex trafficking of children. In fiscal year 2014, more than 2,300 individuals were arrested by HSI special agents under this initiative and more than 1,000 victims identified or rescued.

HSI encourages the public to report suspected child predators and any suspicious activity through its toll-free Tip Line at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE or by completing its online tip form. Both are staffed around the clock by investigators. From outside the U.S. and Canada, callers should dial 802-872-6199. Hearing impaired users can call TTY 802-872-6196. Suspected child sexual exploitation or missing children may be reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, an Operation Predator partner, via its toll-free 24-hour hotline, 1-800-THE-LOST.

For additional information about wanted suspected child predators, download HSI’s Operation Predator smartphone app or visit the online suspect alerts page.

HSI is a founding member and current chair of the Virtual Global Taskforce, an international alliance of law enforcement agencies and private industry sector partners working together to prevent and deter online child sexual abuse.