Florida
Florida sergeant arrested after allegedly writing nearly a dozen inappropriate letters to teen inmate
A police sergeant working at a Florida juvenile detention center is now behind bars herself after she allegedly wrote nearly a dozen inappropriate letters to a 16-year-old inmate.
The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office announced Wednesday that Sgt. Katelyn Gomez, 27, is charged with one count of solicitation of a child to engage in an act that constitutes sexual battery by a person in familial or custodial authority.
Gomez was hired by the sheriff’s office on Jan. 5 and worked as a sergeant at the Pinellas Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Clearwater.
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Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Katelyn Gomez, 27, was arrested Wednesday after authorities discovered inappropriate letters allegedly written by her in the bed of a 16-year-old inmate. (Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office)
Gomez’s alleged relationship with the teenage inmate was uncovered when detectives responded to a call from the detention facility reporting approximately ten inappropriate letters found in his bed.
While investigating the letters, detectives learned they were written by Gomez.
“The letters explicitly described what would take place during their first sexual encounter and described an ongoing relationship which had developed while the victim was incarcerated,” the sheriff’s office said, adding that a photo of Gomez was also found in the boy’s cell.
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Gomez, 27, had been assigned to the 16-year-old boy’s pod at the Pinellas Regional Juvenile Detention Center for three weeks. (Google Earth)
When she was interviewed by detectives, Gomez allegedly admitted to writing the letters and said she and the boy began developing a relationship when they met several weeks ago.
The sheriff’s office said she had been assigned to the boy’s pod for the past three weeks.
Gomez had been instructed to not be alone with an inmate, but staff at the facility told the sheriff’s office she was alone with the boy “several times.”
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Gomez also told detectives that “she fantasized about having a sexual relationship with the victim and planned to build a life with him once he was released,” according to the PCSO.
She was booked into the Pinellas County Jail.
The Florida Attorney General’s Office on Thursday, Dec. 11, filed a lawsuit against popular online gaming platform Roblox, accusing the company of failing to protect its millions of underage users from predatory adults who would “find, groom, and abuse children.”
“Roblox aggressively markets to young children, but fails to protect them from sexual predators,” Attorney General James Uthmeier said in a post to X. “As a father of three little ones and as Florida’s attorney general, my number one priority is simple: to protect our kids.”
The lawsuit claims Florida children have been talked into taking and sending sexual images of themselves and lists several recent incidences, including a 20-year-old California man arrested last month for having sexually explicit conversations with a Palm Coast child and asking for nude photos.
A Roblox spokesperson said the lawsuit “fundamentally misrepresents how Roblox works.”
“We have advanced safeguards that monitor our platform for harmful content and communications,” Roblox Chief Safety Officer Matt Kaufman said in a statement, adding that the company — currently the most downloaded game in the world — will be rolling out additional safeguards “beyond what is required by law and what other platforms do.”
Read Florida’s lawsuit against Roblox
Can’t see the embedded document? Click here.
What is Roblox?
San Mateo, California-based Roblox, released in 2006, hosts millions of user-created games (or “experiences”) constructed with the platform’s built-in game engine. Any user can create a game and share it with others, and there are millions of games available of all types.
The game platform and most games are free to use, but some cost to play. There is also a thriving economy based on Robux, an in-game virtual currency used to purchase virtual items. Roblox offers a subscription service called Roblox Premium that provides access to more features and a monthly allowance of Roblox.
Voice chat is available, but only for users aged 13 or older with verified ages. Age ratings were introduced for games in 2022, and in 2023, 17+ games were permitted to include more graphic violence, romance, and drinking.
According to Roblox, as of 2020, the monthly playerbase included half of all American children under the age of 16.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The 2026 football schedule for the Florida Gators has been set. Next year’s slate was unveiled Thursday night on SEC Network.
The most notable dates are Florida’s SEC opener on Sept. 19 — a Week 3 trip to Auburn, where the Gators haven’t played since 2011 — along with a road game at Texas on Oct. 17 and home games against Ole Miss (Sept. 26) and Oklahoma (Nov. 7).
Next season will mark the Sooners’ first-ever visit to Gainesville. The teams have previously played twice in the postseason, with the Gators defeating Oklahoma 24-14 in their first-ever meeting to win the 2008 national championship.
The Gators open the season in The Swamp on Sept. 5 against Florida Atlantic. UF’s other non-conference opponents will be Campbell (Sept. 12) and at Florida State (Nov. 28).
Florida is also hosting South Carolina (Oct. 10) and Vanderbilt (Nov. 21). The Gators haven’t played the Gamecocks or the Commodores since 2023.
UF takes on Georgia in Atlanta on Oct. 31 after the bye week. Florida’s other road games are Missouri (Oct. 3), Texas (Oct. 17) and Kentucky (Nov. 14).
The Gators will be led by first-year coach Jon Sumrall. He won the American Conference title with Tulane last week and has the Green Wave in the College Football Playoffs. They will have a rematch against Ole Miss on Dec. 20 in the first round after losing in Oxford, 45-10, on Sept. 20.
Sumrall was back in Gainesville this week to assemble his staff. So far, he has hired offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner, defensive coordinator Brade White and defensive line coach Gerald Chatman.
Date
Opponent
Location
Sept. 5
Florida Atlantic
Gainesville, Florida
Sept. 12
Campbell
Gainesville, Florida
Sept. 19
at Auburn
Auburn, Alabama
Sept. 26
Ole Miss
Gainesville, Florida
Oct. 3
at Missouri
Columbia, Missouri
Oct. 10
South Carolina
Gainesville, Florida
Oct. 17
at Texas
Austin, Texas
Oct. 24
Bye
Oct. 31
Georgia
Atlanta, Georgia
Nov. 7
Oklahoma
Gainesville, Florida
Nov. 14
at Kentucky
Lexington, Kentucky
Nov. 21
Vanderbilt
Gainesville, Florida
Nov. 28
at Florida State
Tallahassee, Florida
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A 5-4 start to Florida basketball’s national title defense is not what anyone had in mind — much less, the Gator Nation — but here we are nine games deep into the 2025-26 schedule.
To be fair, three of those losses have come against programs currently ranked among the top five in both major polls and have been off to stellar starts. The Arizona Wildcats, Duke Blue Devils and UConn Huskies are nothing to sneeze at, and while the TCU Horned Frogs are not quite on their tier, all of these losses came either on the road (Duke) or on a neutral court (the other three).
Maybe Todd Golden should reconsider playing in all of these early-season special events in the future. But alas, that is a story for another season.
ESPN thinks Florida has failed to meet expectations
Obviously, with a dominating frontcourt roster returning in full, there was plenty to be optimistic about heading into the campaign. However, the departure of three guards to the NBA and a fourth to the transfer portal has proven to be a void too large to fill with their offseason acquisitions.
And that is the crux of ESPN’s Myron Medcalf’s observation that the Gators have simply not met the bar so far.
“Months after winning a national title with an elite set of guards, Florida’s Todd Golden rebooted his backcourt with former Arkansas star Boogie Fland and Princeton transfer Xaivian Lee,” he begins.
“It hasn’t worked out as planned. In Florida’s two-player lineups — an on-court metric at EvanMiya.com that captures how teams perform when specific players are paired together — the Fland-Lee combination ranked 26th within its own team,” Metcalf continues.
“And though Lee scored 19 points against UConn in Tuesday’s game at Madison Square Garden, that loss was another example of the Gators’ limitations when Lee and Fland (1-for-9 combined from 3 against the Huskies) aren’t equally elite on the same night.”
He has not liked what he has seen, and his conclusion is not necessarily unfair.
“Ultimately, Florida hasn’t looked like a defending champion thus far, despite Thomas Haugh (18.6 PPG, 7.6 RPG, 2.8 APG) playing like an All-American.”
How does the NET, BPI and KenPom view Florida basketball?
While Medcalf’s assessment comes fully equipped with dark clouds, the objective metrics paint a much more optimistic outlook for the team overall.
According to the NET rankings, Florida is just inside the top 25 at No. 24 — one spot ahead of the Miami Hurricanes, who they beat in Jacksonville back in November. The Gators are 1-3 in Quadrant 1 matchups, 1-1 in Quad 2, 1-0 in Quad 3 and 2-0 in Quad 4.
KenPom views the Orange and Blue even more bullishly, ranking Florida at No. 15 despite the weak record. Golden’s gang currently sits at No. 15 with a plus-26.55 adjusted net rating — up from plus-25.70 (17th) at the end of November, while the offense (120.4) moved up from 24th to 23rd in the nation, and the defense (93.8) has only dropped one place — from 10th to 11th — despite allowing 0.6 fewer points per 100 possessions.
The most optimistic metric for Florida comes from ESPN’s Basketball Power Index, which has the Gators at No. 9 despite a 1-3 stretch over the past two weeks. They have an 18.8 overall BPI, with the offense logging in at 8.5 (22nd) and defense earning a 10.3 (8th) rating recently.
ESPN projects Florida to go 21.0-10.0 overall and 12.2-5.8 in conference play.
Follow us @GatorsWire on X, formerly known as Twitter, as well as Bluesky, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Florida Gators news, notes and opinions.
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