Man on pre-trial release on child pornography charges arrested after fleeing to the Dominican Republic

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Wladimir Symonette, 36, was booked into the Alachua County Jail on Monday after fleeing to the Dominican Republic while on pre-trial release on child exploitation charges; he has also been charged with 10 new counts of possession of child pornography.

Symonette was originally arrested on March 17, 2022, after Gainesville Police Department officers, responding to a CyberTip that Symonette was soliciting child exploitation content from juveniles on the social networking site Tagged, served a search warrant at his address.

Symonette reportedly admitted to creating a fictitious persona utilizing the image of a female to communicate with subjects on Tagged, with some of those subjects being juveniles. Symonette also reportedly admitted to soliciting and receiving exploitation content from the juveniles. He was arrested on two counts of soliciting a child to commit illegal sexual acts.

Symonette posted $100,000 bond four days later, but officers learned from his employer that Symonette had fled to the Dominican Republic. Internet connection records provided in response to a subpoena showed that Symonette was logging in to his employer’s network from an IP address in the Dominican Republic beginning in early May. Symonette was fired on July 29.

Advertisement

That evidence also showed that Symonette was accessing the internet, a violation of his pre-trial release conditions.

Meanwhile, detectives were conducting a forensic analysis of Symonette’s devices and filed additional charges for possession of images depicting child pornography. A U.S. Marshal arrested him in the Dominican Republic and returned him to the Alachua County Jail earlier this week.

Symonette is being held without bond on the original charges and on $450,000 bond on the new charges.

Articles about arrests are based on reports from law enforcement agencies. The charges listed are taken from the arrest report and/or court records and are only accusations. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. 

11 Comments