An online ad offered an underage girl for sex. 7 dads showed up, Kentucky cops say

Seven men, who are all fathers, were arrested last weekend after trying to meet a 16-year-old girl for sex, according to the Louisville Metro Police Department.

Instead of the girl meeting the men at the Louisville hotel, it was an undercover officer, Louisville police said. Each of the suspects was arrested without incident and charged with promoting human trafficking of a victim under the age of 18 and prohibited use of electronic communications to procure sex.

The sting operation was called Operation Bright Light because it involves “a dark, heinous crime,” Detective Kris Pedigo said in a news conference Monday.

The online ad received 115 responses, resulting in the seven arrests, Pedigo said. Some of the men who responded to the ad stopped responding when finding out the age of the supposed girl.

“If it just causes one person to change his mind for the fear of being arrested and taken into custody, I think that is great,” Pedigo said

Louisville residents Blake Jeffreys, Richard Tong, Fabio Arguello were all arrested, as well as Edward Phillips of Shepherdsville, Amos Brown of Hodgenville, Jeffery Stutts of Eastview, and Bradley Martin of Jeffersonville, Indiana, WAVE 3 reported.

Five of the seven men had steady jobs and all but one was married, Pedigo said. All seven men are dads, and some of them are fathers of girls.

“That’s shocking. It’s concerning,” the detective said. “It was a good thing we were so successful in this operation.”

One of the men, Fabio Arguello, is a jockey who rode Luv Me Luv Me Not to the winner’s circle of the 1992 Kentucky Oaks, according to WAVE 3. Arguello served on the board atworked at Backside Learning Center at Churchill Downs, according to WDRB.

The learning center said it has removed Arguello from its board, WDRB reported.

Police said another one of the men is a retired military member.