Child exploitation operation nets five

The Columbia Gorge Major Crimes Team, including officers from The Dalles, and the Hood River County District Attorney’s Office assisted, according to a press release issued Tuesday by the Hood River County Sheriff’s office.

Arrested were Brandon David Backman, 44, Hood River; Francisco Ramirez Rendon, 27, The Dalles; John Grover Morgan III, 30, Rhododendron; Daniel Garcia, 23, The Dalles; and a juvenile male, 16, of White Salmon, Wash.

The juvenile’s name has been withheld in accordance with Oregon statute, the release stated.

All five were logged at NORCOR in The Dalles July 15.

Backman and Rendon are charged with online sexual exploitation of a child in the first degree, a class B felony; Morgan III and Garcia are charged with online sexual exploitation of a child in the first degree and luring a minor; and the minor is charged with attempted sodomy in the first degree, according to the press release.

Online sexual corruption requires that a person knowingly uses an online communication to solicit a child to engage in sexual contact or sexually explicit conduct and intentionally takes a substantial step toward physically meeting with or encountering a child.

Portland FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force consists of FBI agents and task force officers from the Beaverton Police Department, the Portland Police Bureau, the Tigard Police Department, the Hillsboro Police Department and the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office.

The FBI’s CETF has a mission to locate and arrest perpetrators who prey on children.

Agents also work to recover underage victims of sex trafficking and child pornography.