TV20 Special Report: Protecting children from social media – WCJB

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (WCJB) – Inside an Alachua County courtroom, an emotional Joel Searby was seen mouthing ‘I love you’ to his family moments after he received a 10-year prison sentence on child sex crimes charges. The victim was a 15-year-old boy who received dozens of sex-related Snapchat messages from Searby last year. “This progressed through the night and into the next day,” said Jay Blankenfeld, the victim’s father. Blankenfeld wanted to publicly share details of his son’s case to warn parents of the dangers of social media and the messages children receive from others. In Searby’s case, the victim was his neighbor. “The stuff he said he was planning to do to my son, I can’t read them all,” Blankenfeld told TV20. Searby’s nine-page arrest report details the conversation Searby had with the teen, some too explicit to show. Blankenfeld remembers pulling into his driveway, a few houses down from Searby, after getting the call from his wife about the nature of the messages. “I drove past their house before pulling into our driveway, and I looked over and his Suburban was sitting there, and I walked into the house, and my son received a picture from him, and he
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