June 8, 2009
Media Contact: Jenn Meale
Phone: (850) 245-0150
McCollum's CyberSafety Presentation Leads to Arrest of Miami Man
TALLAHASSEE, FL – Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced that a Miami man is in custody on charges of sexual battery on a child. Acting on a tip received from a Clay County student at one of the Attorney General’s CyberSafety presentations, deputies from Clay County Sheriff Rick Beseler’s Office arrested Anthony Alexander Caldara, a mechanic serving active duty in the U.S. Navy, for sexually abusing a young girl. The tip was reported by the victim’s older sister to an investigator with the Attorney General’s CyberCrime Unit.
The older sister, a student at a local Clay County junior high school, approached the CyberCrime investigator after attending the Attorney General’s CyberSafety presentation. She reported to the investigator that she and her younger sister had been communicating with Caldara, 21, via cell phone and text messaging and Caldara had sent the children pornography. The two children eventually met Caldara in real life and a subsequent investigation revealed Caldara sexually abused the younger sister.
Caldara was arrested late on Friday in Clay County and was booked into the Clay County Jail with a bond of $40,009. He faces charges of lewd and lascivious battery on a child under the age of 16, lewd and lascivious molestation of a child under the age of 16, and transmission of pornography to a minor. A copy of Caldara’s booking photograph is available online at: http://myfloridalegal.com/webfiles.nsf/WF/MRAY-7STH5J/$file/tcaldara.jpg
The Clay County Sheriff’s Office and the Attorney General’s CyberCrime Unit are both members of the North Florida Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.