HOUSTON - Seven convicted sex offenders with profiles on MySpace.com have been arrested in what Texas officials said was the country's first large-scale crackdown of registered offenders who use the social networking website.
The men were arrested in Houston, Austin, Round Rock, and Glenn Heights during a two-week operation by the Texas Attorney General's Cyber Crimes and Fugitive units.
They were picked up after MySpace.com released the names of offenders with online profiles to the state Attorney General's Office, which had issued a subpoena for the site's subscriber information.
"Texans will not tolerate criminals who prey on our children," Attorney General Greg Abbott said in a statement.
After it was criticized for failing to protect underage subscribers, the site supplied names to attorneys general in other states, and began checking subscribers' criminal histories through Sentinel Safe, a database of registered sex offenders.
In Houston, officials arrested Patrick Joseph Blevins, 49; Reginald Lee Collins, 27; Ronald Daven Metoyer, 41; and Robert Shepard Walter, 23. Walter was also charged last month with failing to register as a sex offender.
Each was ordered held without bond in the Harris County jail. Motions were also filed to revoke the parole of Blevins, Collins and Metoyer. A Harris County jail official would not release information on the men's attorneys late Thursday.
Scott Peter Hansen, 44, was arrested in Glenn Heights, a Dallas suburb. Information on his incarceration or attorney were not immediately available late Thursday.
Jason Labronte Carr, 31, was taken into custody in Austin. A Travis County jail official said Thursday night she did not have access to information on Carr's attorney of record.
Jeremy Bryan Polak, 28, a parole violator accused of failing to register as a sex offender, was arrested in Round Rock, an Austin suburb. A Williamson County jail official said his records did not include Polak's attorney of record.
A message left with MySpace.com's media department was not immediately returned Thursday night.
