A Thurston County man, arrested as part of the 2023 Net Nanny sting operation that nabbed 15 men seeking sexual relationships with minors, was sentenced to nearly two years for second-degree attempted child molestation.
Pedro Romero-Rivera, 36, was arrested on Oct. 27, 2023, after he drove from Olympia hoping to meet a 13-year-old girl he talked to on social media, not knowing it was an undercover police officer from the Renton Police Department the entire time.
He was also sentenced to a year for felony communication with a minor for immoral purposes and three years of community custody for both counts.
The police report states Romero-Rivera asked the fictitious teen if she was with law enforcement, to which the undercover cop replied, “Hell, no I ain’t no cop, lol,” and then asked him to pick up Sour Patch Kids candy and chips. When Romero-Rivera was detained, police found a plastic bag with Ruffles chips and the candy the 13-year-old fake teen asked for.
Romero-Rivera, who pleaded guilty in July, talked with the undercover cop under the username “peterpants.” He said he was in his 20s and wanted to “hang out” with the fictitious teen.
At one point during the conversation, Romero-Rivera sent a comment to the undercover cop that he wanted to have “hot steamy sex.”
According to the pre-sentence investigation report, Romero-Rivera said that he was a part of a “pedophile sting,” after talking with a person on the mobile app Whisper, who was “pretending to be an adult on an adult website.”
He has a criminal history, which includes a felony conviction in 2011 in Lewis County for third-degree assault, in which he attacked and then strangled his then girlfriend until she became unconscious after she caught him cheating.
Romero-Rivera served a year of community custody for the 2011 incident.
