JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A Texas police officer has been indicted for allegedly attempting to entice a child to engage in sexual activity in Florida, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida has announced.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida (USAO), Seth Estes Vanover, 50, of Diana, Texas, has been charged with attempting to entice an 11-year-old child to engage in sexual activity.
Vanover faces a minimum mandatory penalty of 10 years and up to life, imprisonment, and a potential life term of supervised release, said United States Attorney Roger B. Handberg.
Vanover was arrested on October 12, 2022, at the Longview Police Department in Longview, Texas, where he was at the time employed as a lieutenant with that department, the USAO said. Vanover’s arraignment in Jacksonville has not yet been scheduled.
According to court documents, on July 25, 2022, an undercover FBI agent in Jacksonville began conducting an online undercover operation designed to identify and target adults who were seeking to make contact with and engage in illegal sexual activity with minor children.
The undercover agent, who was posing as the parent of an 11-year-old child, reportedly posted a notice in a public chat room of an online social messaging app.
That day, an individual with the username “jattleson,” allegedly later identified as Vanover, contacted the undercover agent using a private messaging feature on the app. User “jattleson” reportedly confirmed that he was “into yung” and is said to have sent the undercover agent several photos depicting child erotica and a photo of a nude adult male displaying his genitalia.
User “jattleson” and the undercover agent reportedly discussed the sexual experience of the 11-year-old “child,” and user “jattleson” stated that he would “love to” meet them in Florida, would “love to be naked with” the “child,” and further used explicit language, the USAO said in its statement.
According to the USAO, user “jattleson” and the undercover agent engaged in more online conversations on August 8, August 10, and September 19, 2022, during which the two reportedly discussed, among other things, meeting in Florida so that user “jattleson” could engage in sexual activity with the 11-year-old “child.”
Further investigation by the FBI revealed that the username “jattleson” had used certain internet protocol (IP) addresses on the social media app during relevant time periods that were assigned to a telephone number subscribed to by the “City of Longview,” with the physical address of the Longview Police Department and the contact name “Seth Vanover,” the USAO said.
According to the USAO, other IP addresses used by user “jattleson” on the app during the relevant time period resolved to a hotel in Waco, Texas, where Vanover was reportedly a registered guest at that time, Vanover’s residence in Diana, Texas, and a telephone number listed as belonging to “Set E. Vanover” at Vanover’s residential address. This telephone number was the same number used by Vanover on a website for his fishing tour guide business, the USAO said.
An indictment is merely a formal charge that a defendant has committed one or more violations of federal criminal law, and every defendant is presumed innocent unless, and until, proven guilty.
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Jacksonville and Tyler, Texas, with the assistance and cooperation of the Longview (Texas) Police Department. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney D. Rodney Brown.
