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Polk County Sheriff’s Phone# 863-298-6200
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Welcome to the Polk County Sheriff's Office News Room, where the Public Information Officers (PIO's) post all of the information that they release to the news media. PIO's act as liaisons between news media organizations and the Sheriff's Office. The PIO's routinely release timely and accurate information and Crime Stoppers bulletins, and respond to routine and "breaking news" media inquiries. News releases and Crime Stoppers information can be found on this page.
PCSO's full-time Public Information Officers are Brian Bruchey, Carrie Horstman, and Meghan Petty. The Public Information Officers can be reached by sending an e-mail collectively at PIOs@polksheriff.org.
The recent news releases sent out by the PIOs can be found here, and archived releases (older than 2017) can be found here.
On Wednesday, March 14, 2018, PCSO Special Victims Response Team (SVRT) detectives arrested five sexual predators and three sexual offenders for failing to register as sexual offenders and other charges in the Davenport, Mulberry, and Lakeland areas.
43-year-old Samone William Banks of 614 Australian Way in Davenport, was required to register as a sexual offender when he moved to Polk County. He was arrested and charged with 2 counts failure to comply with sexual offender registration laws, failure to obtain a Florida Driver's license, and for an active felony warrant out of Harris County, Texas for failure to comply as a sexual offender.
50-year-old John Dominic Nash, 54-year-old Dale Swatman, 45-year-old Pedro Heist Jr., 27-year-old Jonathon Long, and 52-year-old Daniel Richardson all of 5951 Barcola Road in Mulberry,failed to register a vehicle owned as required. They were arrested and charged with failure to provide required information as a sexual offender and VOP (except for Nash).
52-year-old Jay Goers of 5933 Cherry Road in Lakeland, purchased a new car and failed to register it, as required by sexual offender required information laws. He was arrested for failure to comply with sexual offender registration laws and VOP.
45-year-old Santo Caquias of 5951 Barcola Road in Mulberry, did not register multiple Internet Identifiers (social media accounts) as required as a sexual offender. He had six Facebook accounts under varying profile names. Caquias was arrested and charged with three counts of failure to comply with sexual offender registration laws, and six counts of VOP.
"Protecting our children is an absolute priority. We will not tolerate these men disobeying sexual predator or offender laws in Polk County. We will continue to monitor sexual predators and offenders to ensure they obey the law. Those who don't, will go back to jail." - Grady Judd, Sheriff