A Gainesville man accused of soliciting minors for nude photos and videos was apprehended in the Dominican Republic by U.S. Marshals and transported back to Alachua County early last week after violating the conditions of his bond by allegedly fleeing the country for the Caribbean, court records show.
The Gainesville Police Department first began investigating Wladimir “Waldo” Symonette, 36, in 2021 after the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a tip that a user of the social media service Tagged, a user that shared the IP address of Symonette’s Gainesville residency, was using the application for child exploitation, according to court documents.
Through the account, police allege that Symonette, under the moniker “Marciel,” used photos of an adult women in his profile picture and solicited underage boys for pictures of their genitalia, asking if they wanted to have sex with him and an undisclosed gay man, according to court records.
In some instances, Symonette would identify himself to users as a gay man named “Waldo” and send photos of himself to them, according to police.
On multiple occasions, Symonette used Tagged to receive sexually explicit pictures and videos from underage boys, asking a 17-year-old one time to send more to his WhatsApp account even after learning he was a minor, police said. Throughout several different chats on Tagged, Symonette gathered similar media from other juveniles who identified themselves to him as being underage, court documents say.
When Gainesville police made contact with Symonette on March 17, he said his nickname was “Waldo” but initially denied ownership of the account, saying he hadn’t used Tagged for a while, according to police. Upon further questioning, he admitted to creating the account and sending the messages, saying he represented himself as a woman in the account’s profile picture because he received more interest from users that way, police said.
Symonette said he would sometimes move conversations with minors to other social media platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp and Kik, according to police. Symonette was arrested on scene.
Upon obtaining his cellphone, a forensic analysis by Gainesville police uncovered some 21 images depicting child pornography of varying explicitness, according to an affidavit. About 52 images and videos on his phone were identified by police as some form of child erotica or the age of the subjects was considered questionable.
Police recommended 10 charges of child pornography possession and two counts of obscene communication, with prosecutors later certifying all but one of the charges for child pornography possession.
A day after Symonette was originally arrested in connection to the charges, he posted his $50,000 bond, according to court records. However, his bond was recently revoked after his former employer told the court that he fled the jurisdiction of the county, with him having gone to the Dominican Republic around July 21, according to court records.
Such an act is in direct violation of the conditions of his release as well as the accusation that he accessed the internet while out on bond, court documents say.
Captain Kaley Behl, the Public Information Officer for the Alachua County Sheriff's Office, said Symonette was located and arrested in the Dominican Republic in late November, and summarily handed over to U.S. Marshals. Symonette waived extradition and was sent back to Alachua County via the United States’ prisoner transport system, with police booking him in the county jail on Dec. 5, Behl said.
Investigators later learned this wasn’t Symonette’s first time visiting the Dominican Republic since charges were filed. A search warrant issued to Tagged by police found a screenshot uploaded to Symonette’s account that detailed a March 2021 flight from Orlando to Santo Domingo, court documents show.
Symonette has ties to the island, having been born in Haiti, according to the arrest warrant.
This isn’t the first time Symonette has run afoul of the law. In 2014, he pleaded guilty to four counts of grand theft committed in 2011 in Palm Beach County, according to court records. However, adjudication was withheld in the case and he served no jail time as a result, instead serving a year of probation.
Symonette is scheduled to be arraigned in Alachua County Circuit Court on Jan. 3.
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