Thousands of children sat on his lap at the Lakeland Christmas parade for a decade.
Now Sheriff Grady Judd is standing at a podium explaining that the man in the red suit was trying to buy sex with a 13-year-old girl.
That moment happened yesterday – and Judd had to say it out loud to kids watching live.
The Man Behind the Beard
Thomas Hicks, 68, was not some reclusive weirdo living off the grid.
He was the community Santa.
He played the role at the Lakeland Christmas parade for at least ten years.
He worked in marketing at Tri-County Behavioral Health.
He claimed to be a preacher for more than 40 years.
He has been married for over 50 years.
And according to Polk County detectives, he spent his free time trolling known prostitution sites looking for women – or children.
Hicks messaged an undercover detective posing as a 13-year-old girl's guardian and offered $200 to have sex with the child.
He was explicit about what he wanted to do to her – but told the detective he would be gentle.
Then he drove to the parking lot of a major retail store to meet her, texted the detective to say he was in the lot, and found deputies waiting instead.
Judd brought a photo to the press conference – himself posing with Hicks at a public event just weeks earlier.
"It's scary because this guy was well-respected in the community," Judd said.
Tri-County Behavioral Health terminated Hicks immediately and confirmed he never had access to client records or children during his employment.
He now faces human trafficking – a first-degree felony – along with traveling to meet a minor, use of a computer to seduce a child, and use of a two-way communication device to commit a felony.
18 More Predators Caught in the Same Week
Hicks was one of 19 men arrested in Operation Child Protector VIII, a week-long multi-agency sting running April 20 through April 26 in Polk County.
The 19 collectively face 85 felonies and 8 misdemeanors.
Sixteen traveled to a physical location believing they were going to meet children for sex.
Three were charged with human trafficking for offering to pay for sex with a child.
One suspect – 62-year-old Lonnie Hill Sr. of Riviera Beach – spent five weeks messaging an undercover detective posing as a 13-year-old girl, told her he wanted to marry her, then drove two and a half hours to pick her up.
https://twitter.com/PolkCoSheriff/status/2049598650989379911?s=20
He brought condoms and male enhancement pills.
When deputies moved to arrest him, he fought so hard he broke one deputy's leg.
He is now charged with aggravated battery on a law enforcement officer on top of the predator charges.
Another suspect – 36-year-old Ahmed Morsi of Spring Hill – told detectives he was a dentist in Egypt and showed up to the undercover location carrying marinated raw chicken to cook for the child.
One suspect told detectives he was "definitely convinced this is PCSO" before traveling to the location anyway – with a box of condoms.
Seven of the 19 suspects are married.
Three are military veterans.
One is an Uber driver who dropped off his fare and drove straight to the sting.
This Is Why Grady Judd Runs the Same Operation Eight Times
This was not the first Operation Child Protector.
It was the eighth.
The operation ran alongside a simultaneous Polk County human trafficking investigation – combined, the two operations produced 266 arrests.
https://twitter.com/ZeroBarkThirty2/status/2049632494694121917?s=20
That number fits the pattern Judd has built over years: 246 arrests in September 2025, 228 in February 2024, 157 in October 2024.
Every single time, men who look like your neighbor, your coworker, your preacher, your Santa Claus show up thinking they're going to meet a child.
Judd put it plainly at the podium: "Their elevator don't go all the way to the top. It stops at P – pedophile floor. It stops at P – predator floor. It stops at C – child predator floor."
These are not strangers hiding under bridges.
They are hiding in plain sight – coaching youth sports, running church programs, playing Santa Claus at the Christmas parade.
The only thing standing between them and your children is a sheriff willing to run this operation eight times, and detectives willing to sit in chat rooms and wait.
Judd said something at that press conference every parent in America needs to hear: "Thousands and thousands and thousands of children have sat on this guy's lap thinking he was Santa Claus when, in fact, he was a child sex predator."
That is the story.
Not the mug shot.
Not the charges.
The fact that he was right there the whole time – and nobody knew.
Sources:
- Polk County Sheriff's Office, "Nineteen Suspects Arrested During Undercover Investigation," polksheriff.org, April 29, 2026.
- "Grady Judd: Polk County Man Known for Playing Santa Busted in Undercover Human Trafficking Sting," Fox 13 Tampa Bay, April 29, 2026.
- "Grady Judd: Polk County Man Known for Playing Santa Busted in Undercover Human Trafficking Sting," Fox 35 Orlando, April 29, 2026.
- "Polk County Undercover Operation Leads to 19 Arrests in Child Sex Sting," MySuncoast/WWSB, April 29, 2026.
- "Santa Claus Arrested in Central Florida Child Sex Sting, Sheriff Says," ClickOrlando, April 30, 2026.
