John Evans was arrested after a meetup in Davis.
The Davis Enterprise reported that officers waited at a meetup. Evans was arrested.
An Instagram post attributed to @edpwatch mentioned the ages 6 and 11.
Third Davis Arrest in a Year Tied to Online Stings
Evans is the third person arrested in Davis over the past year under similar circumstances, the newspaper's reporting shows. In September 2025, Davis police arrested 25-year-old Oakland resident Kevin Alexander Cueto-Rodriguez after a reporting party, part of a group posing as a minor on Instagram, flagged communications with him.
Cueto-Rodriguez was booked on a felony charge of arranging and going to a meeting with a minor while he was already free on bail in a separate Alameda County case accusing him of exchanging explicit material with a minor and contacting a minor with intent to commit a sex crime, the same account notes. He later struck a plea deal expected to carry a three-year prison sentence, but failed to appear for his August sentencing hearing after being released from jail on his own recognizance. A warrant has since been issued for his arrest.
Vallejo Man's Case Still Pending
In March, Davis police arrested Jorge Antonio Campos, 37, of Vallejo, after he allegedly arranged to meet an underage person in the city through another online sting. Officers booked Campos into the Yolo County Jail on charges of sending harmful matter with intent to seduce a minor, unlawful contact with a minor and arranging a meeting with a minor, the Davis Enterprise reported. Campos is free on a $10,000 bail bond, and his case remains pending, with a preliminary hearing scheduled for October 16 in Yolo Superior Court.
Turlock police arrested Anthony Wyatt on suspicion of two felony offenses after he allegedly kept messaging someone he believed was a 13-year-old girl and requested explicit photographs even after being told her age, according to The Modesto Bee. Separately, a three-day sting operation that began July 29 and involved multiple law-enforcement agencies led to seven arrests across the Bay Area, as reported by CBS News San Francisco.
A National Surge in Online Enticement Reports
The pattern reflects a broader national trend. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's CyberTipline received 1.4 million reports concerning online enticement in 2025, including more than 800 cases in which an offender traveled to meet a child in person, a 158% increase in such reports compared with 2024. NCMEC defines online enticement as communicating with someone believed to be a child online with the intent to commit a sexual offense or abduction, which can include grooming a child toward a face-to-face meeting. The organization also reported an average of 137 financial-sextortion reports per day in 2025, a 37% jump from the year before.
In Oregon, police arrested three men with help from YouTuber JiDion's group, EDP Watch, while cautioning that privately organized stings can be dangerous and may complicate prosecutions, according to The Oregonian.
