When Santa Barbara County sheriff’s deputies arrested Adam Roberto Escarcega of Santa Barbara on Monday afternoon outside the Target Shopping Center in Goleta, it was far from a typical takedown.
The root of the allegations — that Escarcega sought to meet up with a minor for lewd acts — started on Feb. 1, when he reportedly first communicated with a 15-year-old boy on a meet-up app.
The boy was not real, but a man in his mid-20s who goes by the name “Ghost,” and is the founder of a group that seeks to catch men online looking for sex with minors…