ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – For three days, 33-year-old Aaron Lamar Platts exchanged sexually explicit messages online with someone he thought was a 14-year-old girl.
Then he got in his car and drove from Duval County to St. Johns County to meet her.
There was no 14-year-old waiting for him. The person behind the profile was an undercover St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office detective.
That February investigation ultimately led Platts to a St. Johns County courtroom Wednesday, where he entered no contest pleas to five charges and was sentenced to eight years in prison.
Platts pleaded no contest to traveling to meet a minor, attempted lewd or lascivious battery sex act, soliciting a child or person believed to be a child for unlawful sexual conduct using computer services or devices, transmission of material harmful to minors by electronic device and resisting an officer without violence.
Judge Christopher Ferebee ordered Platts to serve five years of sex offender probation after his release from prison. He was also designated a sex offender.
The case started with an undercover profile on a dating website. A detective posed as a 14-year-old girl, and investigators said Platts began communicating with the account.
Over the next three days, prosecutors said, he sent sexually explicit direct messages and a picture.
The online conversations eventually turned into plans for an in-person meeting.
Platts drove south from Duval County into St. Johns County, where detectives were waiting.
His arrest did not go smoothly.
When detectives approached, Platts ignored commands and put his hands inside his waistband, preventing them from handcuffing him, according to the account provided by prosecutors. He was eventually taken into custody.
The St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office investigated the case. Assistant State Attorney Jennifer Lieb prosecuted it.