A 27-year-old Winter Park man was sentenced to five years in prison Monday after pleading no contest to charges stemming from a Seminole County Sheriff's Office sting that found him arranging to meet someone he believed was a 14-year-old girl. Colin A. Shull was also ordered to serve three years of sex-offender probation and to register as a sex offender once his prison term ends.
Sting Traced Back to 2023
According to Orlando-News.com, the case grew out of a 2023 undercover operation run by the Seminole County Sheriff's Office, in which an agent posing as a 14-year-old girl communicated with Shull online. The outlet reports that Shull acknowledged the girl's stated age during their exchanges and continued pursuing her anyway, even raising concerns about the legal consequences of their age difference during a Snapchat voice call.
Despite those concerns, Shull agreed to bring protection and traveled to an agreed meeting spot on U.S. 17-92 in Lake Mary, where he was arrested, the site reported. Seminole County prosecutors presented a photo and video of Shull's genitals that he had sent to the undercover agent, according to the same report.
No Contest Plea Followed by Admission
Shull pleaded no contest in August to traveling to meet a child for sex and transmitting material harmful to minors, per the outlet's account. He admitted to communicating about sex with someone he understood to be underage and to traveling to meet that person, while denying he would have gone through with having sex, the report notes.
Florida law treats these allegations as serious felonies. Under Florida Statute § 847.0135, traveling to meet a minor after using an online service to solicit or lure that minor for unlawful sexual conduct is a second-degree felony, while the underlying act of soliciting or luring a child — or someone believed to be a child — online is a third-degree felony. The statute specifically states that an undercover officer's involvement in detecting or investigating the offense is not a defense to prosecution. Separately, knowingly transmitting material harmful to a minor is classified as a third-degree felony under Florida Statute § 847.0138, which defines the knowledge requirement to include actual knowledge or belief that the recipient was a minor.
A Similar Case, Same Seminole County Sting Unit
Shull's sentence mirrors another case out of the same jurisdiction. Elesen Alexis, 23, was sentenced to five years in state prison followed by three years of sex-offender probation after a jury convicted him in May of traveling to meet a minor for sex, according to a press release from the Office of the State Attorney, 18th Judicial Circuit. In that case, undercover Seminole County sheriff's deputies posed online as a 14-year-old girl named Ashley starting in April 2025, and Alexis acknowledged in text messages that the girl was 14 before driving to an agreed location in Altamonte Springs. Prosecutors said evidence against Alexis included more than 130 messages exchanged with undercover agents.
Shull's case was handled by Seminole County prosecutors, including Elena Vázquez, who has described the broader purpose behind these operations as proactive — investigating ahead of time to keep adults from harming children in their communities. Both cases underscore how Seminole County's sting operations have continued to result in multi-year prison sentences for defendants who traveled to meet decoys posing as teenagers.
