A St. Petersburg man accused of soliciting a child online is now in central Indiana, where he is set to face three child solicitation charges tied to Instagram messages that investigators say date back to 2019. Court filings trace the alleged contact to an exchange with a then 12-year-old girl in Franklin. His initial hearing is scheduled for Thursday afternoon in Johnson County Superior Court.
Documents reviewed by Fox59 identify the suspect as 32-year-old Jeremiah Juist of St. Petersburg. According to those filings, Franklin police took a report on March 1, 2019, about an inappropriate Instagram conversation involving the girl. The records state that Juist was later the subject of an outstanding warrant connected to three child solicitation counts filed on December 1, 2019, and that he was arrested in Pinellas County, Florida, before being extradited to Johnson County.
Johnson County detectives have been running undercover social media sting operations since 2019 to identify alleged online predators, and authorities say those efforts have produced dozens of arrests over multiple years. As reported by WFYI, the sheriff’s office has coordinated with several local agencies on multiple sting operations beginning in 2019…