An Enumclaw man has been convicted for his role in the “Net Nanny” undercover operation that played out through the latter part of 2015.
In December 2015, Eric Kermit Jacobson was arrested and charged with first-degree attempted rape of a child and commercial sex abuse of a minor. He was among 10 suspects rounded up during a weeklong undercover operation launched in Tacoma by the Washington State Patrol and the Exploited Children Task Force.
Authorities said the sting operation netted hundreds of responses and among those were the 10 suspects who agreed to meet with undercover agents who had posed as parents or children.
On Oct. 26, Jacobson’s week-long trial began. The jury took less than one hour to convict him of all the charges. He is scheduled to be sentenced at 1:30 p.m. Dec. 2 in Pierce County Court. He is currently facing a sentencing range of 90 months to life in prison for both counts.
According to a Washington State Patrol probable cause document issued at the time of the arrests, between Dec. 7-16 a detective worked undercover posing as a mother with three children, a 13-year-old boy, an 11-year-old daughter and an 8-year-old daughter.
In Jacobson’s case, the document stated, “The defendant emailed, texted and spoke on the phone with undercover detectives acting in their assumed personas and agreed to meet and commit sex acts with the 11-year-old daughter.”
The investigating officers noted Jacobson was “very cautious about getting caught and used applications to conceal his phone number.”
According to the charging documents he agreed to provide a gift card for sex acts with the child and agreed to meet the undercover officer in Tacoma.
The detective wrote, “When he (Jacobson) arrived at the meeting location he was arrested. He had a cell phone, condoms, lube and Skittles on his person. The officers were able to confirm the cell phone was the same device he had used to communicate with the officers for the sex acts. The defendant agreed to an interview and requested an attorney.”
Of the nine suspects, all men, two are from King County and four are from Pierce County; two hail from Clark County and one is from Thurston County.
The so-called “Net Nanny” program has been a series of undercover operations. It has netted a total of 63 arrests and rescued 18 identified victims throughout the state by the WSP Missing and Exploited Children Task Force. MECTF spearheads the multi-agency operation that includes partners in federal, state and local law enforcement.
“We all have the same goal of apprehending those that express interest in leaving the anonymity of their home computer or device to physically have sex with our children,” said Lt. Mike Eggleston, METCF commander. “We do the best we can to identify the worst of these predators and put them away for as long as the law will allow.”
