After a personal ad posted Sept. 6 in Craigslist's Orange County “Casual
Encounters” section offered to pay high school girls $60
for intercourse and $40 for head, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children alerted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations. The resulting probe eventually led to Leo James Zabala Jr. pleading not guilty in the U.S. District Court in Santa Ana Monday to federal counts of using interstate commerce to attempt to induce a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity. The Whittier 25-year-old could spend 10 years in the pen with a conviction.
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According to a federal grand jury indictment handed down in October, the
ad was answered online by someone named “surfrgirlhb,” who told Zabala
she was 14. Actually, she was a federal agent posing as a teen. The case is similar to another recently involving a Craigslist personal and a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children:
In the latest sting, a rendezvous was set up for Oct. 14 at the Sea Cliffs Village Shopping Center in Huntington Beach. Zabala showed up with two
vibrators, batteries, tangerine-flavored lubricating lotion, and a
receipt revealing he had bought the items two hours earlier, according to the indictment.
He
was arrested after telling federal agents he'd come to meet “Lisa
Richards,” the name the undercover had used in their later
communications, but Zabala denied knowing her age and claimed to be
chickening out on having sex with her. While being interrogated later,
he denied placing the Craigslist personal.
But, according to the
indictment, the same poster of the September ad had previously placed
another one on June 30, 2009, titled “?????Any high school girls looking
to make extra cash$?”
It stated, “im looking for a high school
girl for sex. I will pay you cash $ for it If your interested e-mail be
the following: Pics (these are a must) Location Availability Age Price
(how much?).”
Zabala is out of custody after posting $50,000
bail, but he is being monitored electronically and is forbidden from
getting near a computer pending his trial, according to the authorities.
The federal government does not always release booking photos of those
who have been indicted, but they are with Zabala's in case there are
other victims. If you believe that is you or have information that can
help investigators, call 1-866-DHS-2ICE or visit ICE.gov.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.