Gov. Ron DeSantis Announces Major Arrest in Florida
Federal prosecutors have charged a Tampa-area physician with multiple crimes tied to the production of harmful content involving a minor, as well as attempts to coerce the child into sexual acts.
In a statement from the Justice Department, U.S. Attorney Roger B. Handberg announced the arrest of Dr. Stephen Andrew Leedy, 59, of St. Petersburg. If convicted, Leedy faces a potential life sentence in federal prison. The release specified that Leedy had been charged with “three counts of production of child sexual abuse material and two counts of coercing or enticing a minor to engage in sexual activity.”
Court documents and the indictment indicate that Leedy, a palliative care specialist focused on pain management and serious illness, “utilized the username ‘maximumuncle#9112’ to exploit and victimize approximately ten minors online.”
The DOJ statement further described the nature of Leedy’s online interactions, revealing that “in online conversations and video chats, Leedy instructed the minors to produce sexually explicit images of themselves and directed them to cut, choke, and hang themselves.” Tragically, in November 2021, “Minor Victim 1 was discovered deceased, having hanged herself in front of her phone in a manner consistent with instructions Leedy had previously provided her,” the release noted.
Protecting children has been a key initiative for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who has championed and signed legislation aimed at keeping sexually explicit and gender-related content out of classrooms for young children, particularly in grades K-3.
More recently, DeSantis discussed this issue and broader cultural concerns during an appearance on Mark Levin’s Fox News program, where they explored how certain American institutions, according to Levin, had been infiltrated by what he described as the “woke mind virus,” a term popularized by billionaire Elon Musk. This perceived cultural shift, Levin suggested, had begun to subside after Donald Trump and the Republican Party’s sweeping victories in the 2024 elections.
Levin kicked off the segment by asking, “Hasn’t the same mentality in our country, in many ways, it’s destroying the will to survive? I mean, the idea that wokeism is at the Department of Defense, that it’s at DHS, that it’s in the FBI, Department of Justice, the CIA—there’s no aspect of our government, law enforcement, and intelligence that has not been touched by this poison that promotes physical features, diversity and pronouns, and men are women and women are men, and transition and so forth. This is a poison that is destroying our ability to even think straight, isn’t it?”
DeSantis responded by lamenting what he described as “an era of misplaced priorities.” He explained that “the left has used these institutions which, you know, think back, Mark, when you were working with [then-Attorney General Edwin Meese] under Reagan, the Department of Justice was revered.”
DeSantis continued, “You think about the Department of Defense. I mean, I served in Iraq as a naval officer. We revered these institutions. The left has really hijacked them and they are using those institutions to promote their social agenda. The problem is, one, this leftism is not good for the country, but it also takes their eye off the ball on focusing what they should be focusing on.”
According to DeSantis, the military’s top priority should be ensuring its readiness to “defend the country” by maintaining “lethal force,” while the FBI should focus on its core mission of law enforcement. “They’ve taken the lead since 9/11 on counterterrorism,” he added.
DeSantis also expressed concerns about federal agencies’ lack of cooperation with state and local authorities in Florida. “They kind of say, you know, they take care of terrorism, but we know they have not been as serious about that as in the past,” he noted. This problem, he argued, extends to intelligence agencies, where the “woke mind virus” has “run amok.”
Looking ahead to the future, DeSantis suggested that January 20th—the date of Trump’s second inauguration—presents a chance for a major course correction. “With President Trump coming back in,” he said, “we can clean house, get these institutions focused on the mission that they were created to do, and actually do the work of protecting the American people.”
However, DeSantis acknowledged that the nation has a long road ahead. “We are in a big hole right now,” he said, describing the Biden administration as “about as bad of a period of presidential lack of leadership” as he has seen in his lifetime. He concluded by saying, “I was born at the end of Jimmy Carter’s term, and I would say Biden has done a lot worse than President Carter.”