2 Arrested On Internet Sex Charges
POSTED: Thursday, August 10, 2006
UPDATED: 3:43 pm EDT August 10,
2006
Two men who Brevard County sheriff's investigators said used the Internet to groom relationships with local teenaged boys before sexually molesting them will face court dates next month, according to Local 6 News partner Florida Today.
The two, identified as Jared Matthew Grossman, 48, and John Donald Mankowski II, 24, were charged with lewd and lascivious battery on a minor under 16 in two separate and unrelated cases.
Grossman, a Melbourne resident, was arrested Tuesday and was held at the Brevard County Jail Complex on a $200,000 bond. Mankowski, a former Merritt Island resident, was arrested in Maitland on a $35,000 bond in Orange County.
Agent Dan Ogden of the Brevard County Sheriff's Office said Grossman pretended to be younger and met a then-12-year-old Palm Bay teenager online in late 2003. The Palm Bay teen only recently told police he was sexually assaulted in his home during a meeting with Grossman.
"The kid disclosed the incident and we were looking into when the suspect got in touch him again through his Myspace.com profile," Ogden said. "We believer there may be other victims."
In Mankowski's case, deputies tracked him to Maitland after an investigation into charges he sexually molested a Merritt Island boy he had been chatting with through instant messaging. Ogden said Mankowski met the boy twice at the Merritt Island Square Mall, and then in June traveled to Brevard and sexually abused the youth.
Both are expected to go to court on the charges in early September. Anyone with information on the cases is asked to call the sheriff's office at 633-7162.
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