PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. – A man met a 12-year-old boy with autism online and raped him in the back seat of his car in a Pembroke Pines shopping center, leading to his arrest, according to police.
Pembroke Pines police took Joshua Ronald Willis, 24, of Miramar, into custody on three felony charges Sunday.
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An arrest report made public on Tuesday states that Willis, after meeting the boy online, communicated with him on WhatsApp and arranged a meeting with him on Friday. The report doesn’t state what website or app the two originally began communicating on.
He first picked the boy up at Rosa Price Park, then drove him to the parking lot of the Chapel Trail Plaza shopping center at Pines Boulevard and Northwest 184th Avenue, the report states.
Authorities said Willis sexually assaulted the boy in his vehicle while at the strip mall.
Police said the boy’s father became suspicious when he noticed that his son’s cellphone location showed him at the McDonald’s in the shopping center when he was supposed to be in school.
After the victim’s father questioned his whereabouts, police said the boy told Willis to leave and drop him back off at school.
Willis remained in the Broward Sheriff’s Office Main Jail as of Tuesday, facing two charges of sexual battery of a victim aged 12 to 17 and one count of traveling to meet a minor after using a computer to lure a child.
Online records show he was being held without bond.