Child Abduction and Exploitation

The FBI says it safely recovered a 16-year-old girl from Colerain Township, Ohio, in a hotel near Jacksonville, Florida, last Friday after a month-long, multi-state kidnapping investigation that led to the arrest of an accused repeat kidnapper identified only as Negron, a Tennessee man. The girl was reported missing on Feb. 16, and agents tracked Negron from his Tennessee home—where a search warrant found he had already fled—to Palatka, Florida, where he was arrested and the teen located in a nearby hotel room. Investigators say digital evidence is still being reviewed but no child sexual abuse material has been found so far, and they have linked Negron to a separate 2024 incident in which he allegedly transported a 17-year-old Texas girl for sexual activity and was involved in two barricade standoffs with local police where a shotgun was recovered. His prior record includes local misdemeanor charges for theft, trespassing, criminal mischief, and marijuana possession, and a local district attorney declined to bring charges in the 2024 case, a decision that will draw scrutiny now that he is accused of a new interstate kidnapping. FBI Director Kash Patel publicly credited coordinated work by the Cincinnati, Nashville, and Jacksonville field offices and the elite Hostage Rescue Team, and agents have already met with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio to discuss potential federal charges for transporting a minor for sexual activity.