After sex sting arrests, authorities urge parents to closely monitor kids' online activity
CHARLOTTE − Authorities released the names of four men caught in a sex crimes sting late last year in Delta Township and urged parents to closely monitor their children's online activities to keep them safe from sexual predators.
"You've got to be involved, and it's happening everywhere," Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson said during a joint news conference with Eaton County Sheriff Tom Reich Wednesday afternoon in Charlotte.
"Parents need to monitor their children," Reich said. "We've got to take that extra step (to protect them)."
Swanson founded the Genesee Human Oppression Strike Team (GHOST) in 2018 to catch online "predators" who try to arrange sexual encounters with underage people. The unit has partnered with police agencies in 43 counties and seven states, resulting in 180 suspects arrested, Swanson said.
In the Eaton County operation, conducted on Nov. 17 and Dec. 8, the four suspects chatted over the internet with an undercover officer posing as an underage person and showed up at an undisclosed motel to engage in sexual activity, police allege. It was unclear why officials waited until this week to announce the arrests.
Jerry Jabbar Fullilove, 42, of Jackson, and Decinces Ryan Martin, 35, of Lansing, were charged in December.
Fullilove is charged with engaging a minor for prostitution purposes and accosting a child for immoral purposes. Martin is charged with using a computer to commit a crime and attempted third-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a person, age 13 to 15. Both have since waived their right to a preliminary examination and were bound over for trial, court records indicate.
Gregory Malcom Stewart, 50, and Craig Scott Jackson, 26, both of Lansing, were charged in November.
Stewart was charged with accosting a child for immoral purposes and waived his right to a preliminary examination. Jackson is charged with using a computer to commit a crime and attempted third-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a person, age 13 to 15. He is still awaiting a hearing to determine whether he should stand trial on the charges.
Attorneys for all four men could not immediately be reached for comment on Wednesday afternoon.
The four men separately arranged to meet an underage person for sexual purposes, officials said.
The Genesee County GHOST unit offers online courses for police agencies that want to target sexual predators. Swanson and Reich described the strategy as "proactive."
The GHOST unit has been involved in about 70 cases, and each time, investigators chatted with many dozens of people online, even though not all of the would-be assaulters followed through with an actual meet, Swanson said.
"Across our nation, our state, and, yes, here in (Eaton) County, human sexual predators and human traffickers are preying upon our children, our teenagers and other vulnerable persons," Reich said. "We are proactively seeking out these criminal predators and arresting them before they can do harm to our children."
Contact Ken Palmer at kpalmer@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @KBPalm_lsj.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Police urge parents to monitor kids' online activity after sex string arrests
