FL GOP Strategist Charged With Luring Underage Boy

June 21, 2024 Republicans, Scandal

The Alachua Chronicle reports:

Joel Bruce Searby, 43, was arrested this morning and charged with lewd/lascivious conduct, two counts of obscene communication related to luring a minor to meet him for sex, and using a two-way communications device to facilitate a felony.

The Alachua County Sheriff’s deputy who wrote the report noted that the account in the chats identified himself as someone the victim knew (the role or relationship is redacted) and sent multiple pictures of himself; the deputy noted that several pictures clearly show Searby’s face.

Searby allegedly sent a lengthy series of messages, starting out by asking the victim if he’d “thought about it.” He allegedly asked the victim if he’d ever had “like a secret crush on an older guy? (wide eye emoji & see no evil emoji). Ohhh I just looked at your profile pic you have posted. Omg bro… you’re so hot (hot sweating emoji).”

Gainesville’s ABC affiliate reports:

In the message chain, Searby asked the 15-year-old if he has ever had a crush on an older man and then describes a sexual encounter he had as a teen with an adult man. He suggested the victim should sneak out and go to Searby’s guest house.

He would send the boy a text asking him to go over to help with yard work as an excuse for his parents. On Thursday morning, law enforcement took over the boy’s account and continued the conversation with Searby.

He confirmed the meet-up for “yard work” and a detective pretending to be the victim asked if they would be “jerking off” or something more. Searby replied to the victim’s account, “I would like to do more but we can take it one step at a time and if I start doing anything you don’t want to do we can stop. I’ll walk you through it.”

Searby, a lay pastor and boys basketball coach, is the leader of a local drive to convert public schools to charter schools. There’s much more in both links above.

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