A 41-year-old Fort Myers man has been sentenced to more than 21 years in federal prison after a judge found he used a social media app to entice minors into sexual activity and possessed images and videos depicting the sexual abuse of children. U.S. District Judge Sheri Polster Chappell handed down the sentence of 21 years and eight months, followed by a lifetime term of supervised release, and ordered Rudy Perez to register as a sex offender.
Perez was convicted on charges that included enticing minors to engage in sexual activity, receiving and possessing child sexual abuse material, and transferring obscene matter to a minor, according to WINK News. A jury found him guilty following a bench trial in August. The Department of Justice confirmed Perez was sentenced to more than 21 years in federal prison for enticing minors and for receiving and possessing images and videos depicting the sexual abuse of children.
How Investigators Say the Scheme Unfolded
According to WINK News, Perez used a social media application between January and April of 2022 to persuade, induce, and entice a minor to engage in sexual activity. The same social media application reported Perez's alleged online child enticement to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's CyberTipline in January 2025, which led investigators to obtain a search warrant for his social media account, per the outlet's reporting.
The FBI, which investigated the case, found that Perez had solicited numerous other users who identified themselves as children for sexually explicit images, and that several minors sent him sexually explicit material at his request, the station reports. Investigators say Perez also sent photographs and sexually explicit videos and images of adults to numerous users who identified themselves as children. A search warrant allowed investigators to seize his cellphone, and forensic analysis of the device turned up child sexual abuse material, including numerous videos depicting the sexual abuse of minors, according to the same account.
A Joint Task Force Investigation
The case was investigated by the Fort Myers Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force, which includes the Lee County Sheriff's Office, alongside the FBI. It was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide Department of Justice initiative launched in May 2006 to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse.
Perez's case follows a similar prosecution in the same city. In a separate matter, the FBI's Tampa field office reported that Michael Lawrence Milewski, 32, also of Fort Myers, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Kyle C. Dudek to 30 years in federal prison on charges involving enticing minors and receiving, possessing, and accessing child sexual abuse images and videos.
A National Surge in Online Enticement Reports
The case lands amid a sharp rise in reports of online enticement nationwide. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's CyberTipline received 1.4 million reports concerning online enticement in 2025, according to NCMEC. The organization also reported that CyberTipline reports related to child sex trafficking increased 323% in 2025 compared with the year before.
NCMEC identified and escalated for law enforcement more than 53,000 reports that were urgent or involved a child in imminent danger in 2025, the organization said. It also recorded an average of 137 reports of financial sextortion a day that year, a 37% increase in daily reports compared to the previous year.
