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July 3, 2007
Sexual Offender Found With Teen
Topics: NewsTAMPA - Officer Felicia Pecora said she knew Raymond Gomez had something to hide.
It was about 6:30 p.m. Sunday when Pecora dropped by for a routine address check on Gomez, a registered sex offender who once molested girls while working as a clown. When he opened the door slightly, his eyes were "as big as saucers," Pecora said. "It put the hair up on the back of my neck."
Gomez, 52, told the officer he was naked. She told him to get dressed. Inside the apartment, "his hands were shaking," she said. "The vein in his neck was just ga-gunk, ga-gunk, ga-gunk."
The reason he was nervous, Pecora learned, was a 15-year-old girl inside his bedroom. The girl at first told police she was 18.
The girl also told police she and Gomez had a sexual relationship for six to seven months, starting when she was 14, Pecora said. "She knew he was a sex offender. He told her," the officer said.
2 Met To 'Talk About Religion'
Pecora and Tampa police sex-crimes Detective Eric Wilkinson said Gomez and the teenager met in an online chat room for Christians. They began corresponding using their cell phones.
"She was looking for people to talk to about religion," Pecora said.
Gomez often drove to Bartow to pick up the girl while her mother was at work, Wilkinson said. He didn't know what Gomez had said to strike up the relationship, but the girl seemed infatuated, he said.
She referred to herself using Gomez's name, "almost like they were husband and wife," Wilkinson said.
State law requires law enforcement to verify the addresses of registered sexual predators once a quarter and registered sex offenders once a year. Tampa police have been dropping by homes at least once a month.
Pecora said she wouldn't have stopped at Gomez's address, a concrete-block apartment inside a mobile home park at 4803 E. Hillsborough Ave., if she hadn't noticed his vehicle outside.
Pecora had tried to check on him previously, and he hadn't been there. As a condition of his probation, his home is subject to search anytime, she said.
The girl's family was "distraught" after learning where she had been, Pecora said. The officer said she referred them to counseling.
Keeping Eyes Open For Victims
Gomez told the teenager of another possible victim, Wilkinson said. The detective is investigating.
Gomez was held without bail at Orient Road Jail on Monday night, charged with felony lewd and lascivious battery as well as violating his probation, jail records show.
Public records show he was convicted in 2003 of lewd and lascivious molestation on a child younger than 16. He is on probation until 2018.
That charge stems from a 2002 incident in which four girls said he touched them under their shorts while he was painting their faces as a clown at a Tampa community center, a Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office report states.
News Channel 8 reporter Josh Thomas contributed to this report. Reporter Valerie Kalfrin can be reached at (813) 259-7800 or vkalfrin@tampatrib.com.
Posted by admin at July 3, 2007 7:49 AM
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