An underage Florida teen lured men with a dating app, robbed them, and then threatened them if they ratted her out to the cops, police said.
The Broward County Sheriff’s Office announced Tuesday that Ednita Leon-Alamo, 17, posed as 21-year-old Emily Perez to set up dates with multiple men using the hookup app Meet Me before robbing them.
One unsuspecting man, Konstanti Ilich Chernitskiy, agreed to meet the so-called 21-year-old at a home in Deerfield Beach at 1 a.m. on August 7. When he arrived at the home, three men wearing in ski masks demanded cash from him while waving handguns, according to a probable cause affidavit.
After robbing Chernitskiy of $15, a cell phone, and his credit and debit cards, the gang of thieves forced him into his car and used his medical coat to blindfold him.
The thieves drove Chernitskiy to several ATMs before coercing him to withdraw money at 4 a.m., letting him go after they swindled $200 out of him.
Police traced the phone number used to set up the date to Leon-Alamo, who is currently serving juvenile probation for a 2016 battery charge.
Authorities also charged Leon-Alamo’s accomplices, her boyfriend Peterson Joachim, 22, and Shnyder Dumas, 19, with two counts each of armed robbery and kidnapping, and one count each of carjacking.
Even though Leon-Alamo is underage, detectives say they would not press charges against the male victims who were duped by the app.
“The victims are released under the threat that if they contact law enforcement they’ll get in trouble because Leon-Alamo is a teenager and not an adult as she claimed on the app,” the sheriff’s office said. “BSO detectives are focused on identifying other victims and not pursuing charges against anyone who was duped.”