Published: July 31, 2007 11:20 pm         

Alleged predator arrested

By Cass Rains

Staff Writer



An Ohio man arrested in Florida after allegedly soliciting an undercover agent online to purchase children for sexual torture had been in contact with Enid Police Department’s Internet Crimes Against Children Unit.

Sgt. Bryan Skaggs said he made contact with Jeff Doland in June while posing as the mother of two girls, ages 12 and 14. Skaggs said the man wanted to come to Enid to hold the children underwater until they passed out.

Doland was arrested Saturday by authorities with Florida Attorney General’s Child Predator CyberCrime Unit after he flew to Miami, believing he was going to meet a mother of two girls, ages 9 and 12, and pay $550 to forcibly submerge the children underwater until they became unconscious, according to a news release from the Florida Attorney General’s Office.

Skaggs said the man offered him $500 to do the same in Enid. He said EPD will forward its case to the Florida attorney general’s office.

Skaggs said the man also had contact with an Internet crimes unit working in Missouri.

“This was the first joint investigation with the task force,” Skaggs said.

In Florida, during multiple Internet conversations, Doland told the woman, who actually was an undercover agent with the U.S. Secret Service, “dunking” was his particular form of sexual gratification, according to the news release.

The investigation began in April when the Secret Service agent was working undercover in an Internet chat room, posing as the mother of two young daughters.

Doland, of Uniontown, Ohio, approached the agent online and said he would pay to be able to dunk the girls, according to the news release. He said he “liked watching the bubbles” and went on to send the undercover agent explicit images of child torture as examples of what he proposed to do to the two children, the release states.

The agent alerted authorities with the Attorney General’s CyberCrime Unit, who assisted with the investigation until Doland announced his intention to meet the agent in Miami, according to the release.

Doland was arrested when his plane arrived in Miami after again describing to another undercover investigator exactly what he wanted to do to the children.

Doland is expected to be charged with selling or buying of minors, a first-degree felony, and promoting the sexual performance of a child, a second-degree felony, according to release.

EPD’s ICAC unit has been operating online since May.