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A missing 17-year-old girl was found hiding in a convicted sex offender’s closet in Florida, authorities said Tuesday, leading to the man’s arrest on multiple charges.
Polk County detectives went to the home of Alexis Diaz-Toledo, 30, on Monday after getting a tip from Orange County deputies that a runaway teen might be with a man in Dundee, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office said.
Diaz-Toledo initially told investigators he had not seen the girl for several days and denied knowing her whereabouts, according to the sheriff’s office.
Authorities said he also initially refused to let detectives search his home.
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Detectives then determined Diaz-Toledo was in violation of his sex offender registration requirements for failing to report two vehicles being kept at his home.
When investigators eventually searched his home, authorities said detectives found the missing girl hiding in a bedroom closet.
The teen was safely returned to her family, the sheriff’s office said, without elaborating on how she ended up at the home of Diaz-Toledo.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd underscored concerns about the suspect in a statement to Fox News Digital.
“A 30-year old male sex offender is not the kind of person you want giving a 17-year old girl a place to stay,” Judd said. “I can assure you that Alexis Diaz-Toledo did not have the missing juvenile’s best interests in mind. Suffice to say, we gave Alexis a place to stay for a while — at the Polk County Jail.”
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Diaz-Toledo was arrested and charged with two counts of failure to comply with sex offender registration requirements, interfering with custody of a minor, sheltering a minor without notifying a parent and providing false information to law enforcement during a missing person investigation.
Diaz-Toledo remained in custody as of Wednesday, and was not eligible for bond, according to online jail records.
Diaz-Toledo has been a registered sex offender since a 2014 conviction for lewd and lascivious battery involving a minor between 12 and 15 years old, the sheriff’s office said.
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