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3 Accused Of Soliciting Minors In Polk

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By RAY REYES

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 18, 2008

TAMPA - Three men, including a youth swimming coach, were arrested in Polk County last week, accused of using online chat rooms and instant-messaging programs to solicit minors for sex, authorities said.

Undercover detectives posed as children online, and two of the men sent pornographic photographs and webcam images of themselves committing lewd acts, the Polk County Sheriff's Office said.

Some of the men drove to a house in Polk County to follow through with online conversations, Sheriff Grady Judd said in a news release.

According to the sheriff's office, those arrested Thursday and Friday are:

•Ryan Allen Gage, 28, of 7740 Shannon Lane, Zephyrhills. During online chats, Gage sent pictures of a nude man to detectives and asked for phone sex, authorities said. Gage was arrested on charges of traveling to meet a minor for sex, receiving a computer statement for the purpose of sexual conduct, use of a computer to seduce a child and three counts of transmission of harmful material to a minor.

•Michael Richard Wullschleger, 48, of 1506 E. Sandy Ridge Road, Monroe, N.C. Detectives say he drove 45 miles from a resort hotel near Sea World in Orlando, where he was staying with his wife, daughter and daughter's friend, to Lakeland, where he thought he was meeting a 14-year-old girl.

Wullschleger dropped off his family at Disney World on Friday morning and chatted online from his hotel room. Detectives posed as teen girls; Wullschleger asked if they had ever been with a man older than 40 and if they wanted to be, if they were virgins and discussed watching X-rated movies with them, authorities said.

When he was arrested, Wullschleger told detectives he is employed as a youth swimming coach for the Monroe Swim Team, a nonprofit group in North Carolina, and as a bus driver for the Union County Parkwood School District in North Carolina, the sheriff's office said.

He was arrested on charges of traveling to meet a minor for sex, use of a computer to seduce a child and two counts of receiving computer statements for the purpose of sexual conduct.

•Gustavo Andres Diaz, 24, of 621 Samuel St., Davenport, drove to Lakeland with a box of condoms in his pocket to meet someone he thought was a 13-year-old girl, detectives said. Diaz chatted online about what he wanted to do with the girl when he arrived at the house and sent several live webcam images of himself committing lewd acts, the sheriff's office said.

Diaz runs a business called Phat Tats that does airbrush tattoos in the Orlando area. He was arrested on charges of traveling to meet a minor for sex, receiving computer statements for the purpose of sexual conduct, three counts of transmission of harmful materials to a minor and three counts of lewd and lascivious exhibition.

Judd said more arrests are pending in the investigation, dubbed "Operation Marauder."

All three were in the Polk County Jail on Sunday. Gage's bail is set at $120,000, Wullschelger's at $21,000 and Diaz's at $27,000.

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