NEW JERSEY — Thirty one men across New Jersey and Pennsylvania — among them a New York City subway operator, a U.S. postal carrier, a retired Hudson County corrections officer and a man who worked at a skating rink — were arrested and charged with sexually exploiting children online.
The 31 arrests were announced Wednesday; they are the result of a months-long Internet sweep led by New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal and State Police.
The investigation was called “Operation 24/7,” and it was launched by the AG’s office in response to a continued spike in children being approached or groomed by online predators during the COVID pandemic, a period when screen time and device time skyrocketed for American children and teens.
“Operation 24/7” ran for three months, from April 1 to June 30 of this year. The men arrested range in age from 18 to 65.
As part of the investigation, law enforcement monitored these apps: Kik, Skout, Grindr, Whisper, Omegle, Tinder, Chat Avenue, Chat Roulette, Wishbone, Live.ly, Musical.ly, Paltalk, Yubo, Hot or Not, Down, and Tumblr. In the pasts, arrests have also been made involving the gaming apps Fortnite, Minecraft and Discord.
The majority of the men, 27 in total, were charged with possession and/or distribution of child sexual abuse materials, including, in many cases, child rape videos. Read more here
Among those arrested was Gordon Strater, 55, of Blackwood, N.J. U.S. Postal Service carrier. Arrested May 12. Possession of Child Sexual Abuse Material (3rd degree). We also found this information regarding Strater: In 2014, Gordon P. Strater was a Postmaster at the U.S. Postal Service in Somerdale, New Jersey. [Source: FederalPay.org]
this man groomed me as a child.