The Polk County Sheriff’s Office has arrested 36-year-old Donald Mitchell of Lakeland for sexual offenses against a student by an authority figure (F2).
On December 10, 2024, the former student, a 19-year-old female, reported via social media that she had been engaged in a sexual relationship with Mitchell from October of 2023, when she was a student at Kathleen High School, to November of 2024, after her graduation. When contacted by detectives, Mitchell denied there was any sexual component to their relationship until after the student had graduated, but admitted to texting her often. Mitchell told detectives that he deleted a lot of text messages between he and the victim because he did not want his wife to find them.
PCSO Special Victims Unit (SVU) and Computer Crimes Unit (CCU) detectives examined the text messages exchanged between the two thoroughly. One such message from Mitchell to the victim, sent on Valentine’s Day of this year, read, “I’m here to grow and groom you into what [I] know you’re capable of being!” Other messages include: