Tennessee man charged in Ohio teen's month-long disappearance
A Tennessee man is facing charges after police said a teenager who had been missing from Ohio for a month was found with him in Florida.
Forty-two-year-old Stephen Negron of Rogersville, Tennessee, was charged with transportation of a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, U.S. Attorney Dominick S. Gerace II announced on Thursday.
Citing charging documents, officials said the victim's cell phone was powered off on Feb. 13, and just before that, data placed the phone at an intersection near the victim's home in Colerain Township, Ohio.
A review of security cameras showed a silver Chevrolet pickup truck with a Tennessee license plate number registered to Negron in the area at the same time, officials said. Using license plate readers, investigators said they tracked the truck's travel through Kentucky and into Tennessee.
On March 12, FBI agents in Tennessee executed a search warrant at Negron's home, where pings on a new cell phone led agents to the Quality Inn & Suites Palatka Riverfront Hotel in Palatka, Florida. The next day, the U.S. attorney's office said authorities found Negron and the victim.
Prosecutors said that Negron also had an ongoing protective order issued out of Texas for an 18-year-old who had met him online in 2023 when she was 16 and he was 41. The order stemmed from a case where authorities said Negron brought the teenager to Tennessee and drugged her, sexually assaulted her and threatened her family.
Negron was arrested on charges related to the former Texas victim, and he'll be transferred to Ohio to face his charges there, the U.S. attorney's office said.
