GRANT, Mich. — A Philadelphia man is behind bars in Michigan after he tried to meet up with a teenager from Grant, police said on Friday afternoon.
According to the Grant Police Department, a 16-year-old student spoke with the school resource officer right after attending a human trafficking prevention seminar at the school.
"Recently one of our high school students attended one of the workshops and talked about in one of the classes and realized something doesn’t seem right. Something that I’m receiving online doesn’t seem right," said Grant public schools superintendent Brett Zuver. "She reported it to our school resource officer."
That conversation sparked an investigation, Zuver said, which led to the Newaygo County Sheriff's office, Michigan State Police, and the FBI getting involved. Then on Saturday January 14, 30-year-old Patrick Adam Lathrop was arrested after he arrived on a flight to Gerald R. Ford International Airport.
"This guy was from out of state and was coming in specifically to connect with an underage girl," Zuver said.
Investigators added that they seized several devices and hard drives from Lathrop.
“The great thing is she’s OK. She did the right thing," Zuver said. "We’d like to think a lot of the work that our middle school staff is piloting and working with it helped, at least, to make her aware that this is not normal, and this was not something that she wanted to be a part of. So, it really helped her out."
On January 17, Lathrop was arraigned in Newaygo County on multiple charges, including child sexually abusive activity, distributing sexually explicit material involving children, and using a computer to commit a crime. If found guilty, he could spend up to life in prison.
Anyone with information on this investigation can call the Grant Police Department at (231) 834-7212.
"Human trafficking is a big problem not just in our area but across, you know, across the globe and that's something that we’re really trying to raise awareness with both our male students and female students," Zuver said. "Nobody's immune to it. It happens everywhere. You don’t think about it. It’s not something you like to talk about but being able to raise awareness will be able to help save lives. This was an instance where that happened."
***If you or anyone you know is a victim of human trafficking, you can call the national hotline at (888) 373-7888 or text at 233733 using the keywords "HELP" or "INFO".***
