KALAMAZOO, MI (WKZO AM/FM) — Six men were arrested for child sex crimes, including a Portage school bus driver, by the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office.
Arrested were 33-year-old Alexander Bogdan of Martin; 58-year-old Paul Drummond of Kalamazoo; 43-year-old Joshua Knapp of Wayland; 39-year-old Brian Malone of Byron Center; 37-year-old Brandon Moore of Kalamazoo; and 50-year-old John Morrill of Kalamazoo each face charges of accosting a child for immoral purposes and computer crimes.
Malone also faces a charge of child sexually abusive material and Bogdan a charge of aggravated indecent exposure.
Kalamazoo County Sheriff Richard Fuller said members of his Kalamazoo Human Oppression Strike Team, or KHOST, posed as juveniles on hundreds of sites and apps and messaged with men looking to have sex with minors.
During a press conference held on Friday, August 26, Sheriff Fuller urged those with information on these type of sex crimes to come forward.
“If you have any information related to these cases that we have talked about today, or any case here in Kalamazoo County that you may know of, and you have information that you want to help in our fight to stop this activity, please contact our Sheriff’s Office Detective Bureau,” said Fuller.
KHOST’s first sting was in April, when it netted three men, one of whom was a Western Michigan University campus police officer and another of whom worked in a nursing and rehab facility in Mattawan.
In that sting, authorities said, the men thought they were talking with a 15-year-old girl over the internet when they asked for sex.
The person they were speaking with was actually an undercover police officer. When the men arranged to meet up and went to a Kalamazoo-area hotel, they were arrested.
