HOUSTON(AP)
Seven convicted sex offenders with profiles on MySpace.com have
been arrested in what Texas officials said was the country's
first large-scale crackdown of registered offenders who use the
social networking Web site.
The men were arrested in Houston, Austin, Round Rock, and Glenn
Heights during a two-week operation by the Texas Attorney
General's Cyber Crimes and Fugitive units.
They were picked up after MySpace.com released the names of
offenders with online profiles to the state Attorney General's
Office, which had issued a subpoena for the site's subscriber
information.
"Texans will not tolerate criminals who prey on our
children," Attorney General Greg Abbott said in a
statement.
After it was criticized for failing to protect underage
subscribers, the site supplied names to attorneys general in other
states, and began checking subscribers' criminal histories
through Sentinel Safe, a database of registered sex offenders.
In Houston, officials arrested Patrick Joseph Blevins, 49;
Reginald Lee Collins, 27; Ronald Daven Metoyer, 41; and Robert
Shepard Walter, 23. Walter was also charged last month with failing
to register as a sex offender.
Each was ordered held without bond in the Harris County jail.
Motions were also filed to revoke the parole of Blevins, Collins
and Metoyer. A Harris County jail official would not release
information on the men's attorneys late Thursday.
Scott Peter Hansen, 44, was arrested in Glenn Heights, a Dallas
suburb. Information on his incarceration or attorney were not
immediately available late Thursday.
Jason Labronte Carr, 31, was taken into custody in Austin. A
Travis County jail official said Thursday night she did not have
access to information on Carr's attorney of record.
Jeremy Bryan Polak, 28, a parole violator accused of failing to
register as a sex offender, was arrested in Round Rock, an Austin
suburb. A Williamson County jail official said his records did not
include Polak's attorney of record.
A message left with MySpace.com's media department was not
immediately returned Thursday night.
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