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Rapunzel dress, child porn charges put New York prison guard in Pinellas jail

 
Jude Thaddeus Grant Danahy responded to an ad seeking someone to have sex with a girl, age 11.
Jude Thaddeus Grant Danahy responded to an ad seeking someone to have sex with a girl, age 11.
Published July 31, 2014

TAMPA — A New York high-security prison guard bought a purple Rapunzel costume from a Disney store and sent it to Florida in February as part of a plot to have sex with an 11-year-old girl, a federal complaint alleges.

Jude Thaddeus Grant Danahy, 34, answered an online ad last summer from a self-described single mom looking for a man to teach her daughter how to please him, the court record states.

The ad was merely bait to trap predators. The "mom" was a Tampa-based agent for Homeland Security Investigations and the "girl" was fictional. But the federal charges are not.

Danahy was booked Tuesday into the Pinellas County Jail, accused of attempted child enticement, attempted production of child pornography and attempted receipt of the porn. The Buffalo man was initially arrested in New York on July 2.

He used the screen name "Daddysknee" when responding to the ad. He sent the "mom" a camera and asked her to take nude photos of the girl, the record states.

The adults exchanged hundreds of explicit texts and emails. Danahy's communication became more overt in January, the agent wrote. That's also when Danahy was told that the "girl" was 11, not 12 as first described.

Linda Foglia, a spokeswoman for the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, says Danahy is on leave without pay. Hired as a corrections officer in 2006, he worked at Wende Correctional Facility in western New York.

She said the corrections agency would take "appropriate action" against him once formally notified of his arrest.