A 45-year-old Lakeland man learned the hard way that a court-ordered GPS monitor does not forget where you are. Polk County deputies arrested David Nathanael Mott yesterday after tracking his device to a home on Saturn Street, authorities said. The arrest, tied to an active Lee County warrant for an alleged probation violation, was described as peaceful, and deputies took Mott to the Polk County Sheriff’s Processing Center for booking.
How deputies located him
Polk County deputies moved in after getting a tip from the Lee County Sheriff’s Office and tapping into data from the court-ordered GPS monitor, which pinpointed the Saturn Street residence, according to the Tampa Free Press. The outlet reports Mott was already required to wear the GPS device as a condition of his probation when deputies showed up. Officials told the paper the arrest was made without incident and that Mott was taken to the Polk County Sheriff’s Processing Center for processing.
Court record and registry
Public registration and court records show Mott was convicted in Lee County on charges related to possession of photographs of child sex performance, with those convictions and probation terms listed in state registry data. That information appears in offender records, which cite a 2021 Lee County case and identify Mott as a registered sexual offender, according to Offender Radar. The records include the Lee County docket number referenced in court filings and indicate he remained under supervised release at the time of his arrest.
What comes next
Because the arrest is based on an alleged probation violation, it will be up to Lee County prosecutors and the sentencing judge to decide whether to push for revocation or some other sanction and to schedule a hearing if needed. Florida law spells out how probation-violation hearings work and what penalties can follow; those procedures are laid out in Chapter 948 of the Florida Legislature’s statutes. Polk deputies’ involvement largely ends with the arrest, while the Lee County Sheriff’s Office will handle the warrant’s next steps, the Tampa Free Press reports.
