08/11/2025
Tampa man sentenced to 13 years in prison for traveling to meet minor for s*x
Back in February of 2023, Dario Manuel Cruz, who was 34 at the time, drove himself from Tampa to Sebring to commit a s*xual battery on a 14-year-old girl he had lured online. In May of 2023, he came back in an inmate transport van wearing handcuffs to face eight felony charges.
Today (Aug. 11, 2025), he was sentenced to 13 years in prison, followed by 15 years of probation and a lifetime as a s*xual offender after pleading no contest to use of a computer to seduce/solicit a child, traveling to meet a minor, and lewd battery. He was adjudicated guilty on each of the charges.
The Highlands County Sheriff’s Office Special Victims Unit was informed of the incident on Feb. 20, 2023. That was two days after Cruz had driven to Sebring, picked up the victim around 11 p.m., given her alcohol and ma*****na, and taken her to a hotel.
Cruz had been chatting with the girl online for over a month, telling her he was a 17-year-old boy. The victim told detectives that once she got to the hotel room with Cruz, she tried to get him to stop having s*x with her. He told her to shut up and continued the s*xual assault. He later drove her back to her street and dropped her off around 3 a.m.
The victim texted some friends about what had happened, and they all encouraged her to tell her parents or law enforcement. The next day, one of the victim’s friends reported the incident to the HCSO.
“In law enforcement, we always tell people to ‘see something, say something.’ We repeat that phrase to adults and to students all the time. I want to commend the friends of this young victim for taking that message to heart and making sure that law enforcement was notified about this predator,” Sheriff Paul Blackman said at the time.
“If someone hadn’t come forward, he would be free to do this to another young victim. Instead, he is in jail where he belongs.”
A search of Cruz’s phone records showed that he had been in contact with the victim since January on Discord, a messaging and chatroom application. That was where Cruz lied about his age to gain the trust of the victim and made plans to sneak her out of the house.
“A case like this brings to light how important it is for parents to talk to their children about online safety. As bad as this was for this young victim, it could have been a lot worse,” Sheriff Blackman said. “Children need to be taught that they never truly know who they are chatting with online and that there are people out there who seek to do them harm.”
