Lee County Port Authority officer fired, accused of attempting to meet with a minor

A Port Authority Police Officer is no longer on the job after he got caught up in an undercover sting while out of town.

When the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office conducted operation ‘Keystroke’ and the results were quite disturbing.

Bill Leeper, a Nassau County sheriff said, “I will say this though. If you’re a parent, the results of this operation should scare the crap out of you. Literally. I couldn’t believe how many grown men wanted to have sex with what they thought was a 13 and 14-year-old child.”

11 men were arrested during this four-day operation two of them are from right here in Southwest Florida.

One is a law enforcement officer at the Lee County Port Authority Police Department.

“This is Jeffrey Allen Burrell. You’ve heard of dirty old men. This is a picture of a dirty old man. He’s 68 years old, and he is from Fort Myers, Florida,” Leeper said.

Burrell never showed up to meet this girl. If he did he would have met up with undercover detectives.

“We could not get his booking photo when we went down to arrest him. But this is a picture of him in the office when we arrested him. Also, he retired after 31 years of law enforcement service at the Quincy Police Department in Massachusetts,” Leeper said.

The Port Authority told WINK News he was terminated on September 9.

The other man is a captain in the U.S Army stationed in West Point Military Academy.

“This is Tavarris Jamal Andrews. He’s 31 years old from Lehigh Acres in Florida. He stated he wanted to have sex with what he believed to be a 14-year-old child and sent her a nasty picture of himself,” Leeper said.

WINK News was not able to get ahold of Jeffrey Burrell but was able to get ahold of Tavarris Andrews by phone.

Andrews hung up once he realized the call was from WINK News.

The Nassau County Sheriff said all of these men did conceal their age.

The sheriff’s office plans to conduct more investigations like this in the future.