Nonprofit founder first to alert authorities about troubling behavior, make changes
A 21-year-old Kissimmee man has been arrested on multiple child-exploitation charges after deputies say he first tried to groom a 10-year-old girl while delivering food for the Osceola Response Team, a nonprofit that provides community relief and disaster-response services.
According to the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office, Alberto “AJ” Jose Castaner Jr. posed as an 11-year-old boy to engage in online messaging with the girl after delivering food to her home. While these exchanges did not meet the threshold for criminal charges, deputies said they showed signs of grooming, prompting the sheriff’s Internet Crimes Against Children unit to launch an undercover operation. Detectives created a profile of an 11-year-old girl targeting Castaner and said he engaged in sexualized conversations, solicited nude photos and sent explicit images of himself to the profile he believed was a minor.
Richard Herr, who started the Osceola Response Team with his late parents, said he alerted deputies within an hour after the child’s mother told him Castaner had been texting her daughter.
“I got in his face and told him we had to call it in. Then we went straight to law enforcement,” Herr said.
Herr said deputies made a report, and from that point he kept Castaner under close watch — confiscating his phone and never allowing him to make deliveries alone. Despite those precautions, investigators later uncovered further online activity in which Castaner exchanged sexual images with what he believed was a child.
Deputies executed a search warrant last week at the Osceola Response Team’s headquarters, where Castaner had been staying. Several electronic devices were seized. Castaner was charged with eight counts of transmission of harmful material to a minor, one count of solicitation of a minor, and one count of unlawful use of a two-way communication device. He remains in the Osceola County Jail without bond.
The Osceola Response Team describes itself as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that operates independently of county government, providing services such as food distribution, basic assistance, and search-and-rescue hounds. Herr said his organization, which runs on donations and receives no government funding, has never required volunteer background checks because they cost about $70 each. That policy has now changed.
“We’ve suspended everything until the background checks come back,” Herr said. “We can’t have this again.”
He added that the nonprofit will also require CPR and safety training for all volunteers before resuming operations.
Herr said he brought Castaner onto the team last year because he was homeless and struggling without family support, and that Castaner admitted to him that he had done wrong, but during a phone call from jail rambled about hurricanes instead of his charges — a remark Herr said showed “something is not right” and that professional help is needed.
“Mentally, he’s not 21. He needs help, not jail. Jail is not going to teach him,” Herr said.
Herr said the incident has devastated him and he has also faced backlash online. He said he hopes people will understand he tried to protect the community by reporting Castaner and then trying his best to monitor him.
“I just wish the public would see what I saw. I saw a boy that’s lost, but I knew if I let him go that it would be more catastrophic,” Herr said.
Anyone with information about this case or similar incidents is asked to contact the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office at 407-348-2222.
