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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nAccording to the Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office, 22-year-old Emerick Priddy met the victim on Snapchat and convinced her to sneak out of her home in the middle of the night to meet him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Deputies say Priddy drove to the girl\u2019s home from West Palm Beach, where she climbed out of a bedroom window and got in his car. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Priddy, according to investigators, then drove her to a park, where they got into the backseat and engaged in sex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He told the victim when he met her online that he was 17 years old, according to the Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When she told him that she was 14 years old, deputies say he replied, “its prolly a one time thing” and “I aint worried.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When deputies spotted Priddy\u2019s Honda Civic in a parking lot just before 3 a.m. on Saturday, January 11, 2025, they said Priddy was in the backseat with the victim, and both were in various stages of undress. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Priddy was arrested and charged with traveling to meet a minor for sex, lewd battery, transmission of material harmful to a minor, interference in child custody, use of a two-way communication device in a felony. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Emerick Priddy picked the wrong county to come to and sexually batter a child,” Judd explained. “He’s now facing five felonies and hopefully will be registered as a sexual offender for the rest of his life.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd says a West Palm Beach man accused of grooming a 14-year-old girl he met online picked the wrong county to sexually batter a child. According to… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDFcL0JCMXJvOGQxLndlYnA_Zml0PTUzNCUyQzMwMCZzc2w9MSIsInR4dCI6IkZsb3JpZGEgbWFuIGFjY3VzZWQgb2Ygc2V4dWFsbHkgYmF0dGVyaW5nIFBvbGsgQ291bnR5IHRlZW4gaGUgbWV0IG9ubGluZSB0b2xkIGhlciAmIzgyMTY7SSBhaW5cdTIwMTl0IHdvcnJpZWRcdTIwMTkiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImhpZ2h3YXkiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.CoCQez8pJ6GTHqXCLo7uSFUjBaOE1IGsPlxb6jHKZZoMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":60864,"url":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/BB1ro8d1.webp","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[13152],"class_list":["post-60863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-florida-man-accused-of-sexually-battering-polk-county-teen-he-met-online-told-her-i-aint-worried"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60863"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60865,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60863\/revisions\/60865"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}