Sex offender tried to get two teen girls to drink booze, cops say
A sex offender is accused of trying to get teen girls in the Keys to drink rum and beer and travel from Key Largo to Marathon with him, deputies say.
Alexander Snow, 22, was arrested on one charge of failing to register with the state of Florida as a sex offender and a misdemeanor count of providing alcohol to a minor, following a traffic stop in Key Largo around 8:45 p.m. in which deputies found beer, rum and two teenage girls riding in the backseat.
Snow, of Marathon, said the alcohol found in the car in which he was a passenger was his and he intended to drink it by himself when he got home that night. Snow said his friend just picked the girls up, and he did not know them.
“I don’t even know the girls’ names,” he said Monday.
Snow was a passenger in a 2009 Infiniti that Monroe County Deputy Jose Hernandez stopped after the driver did not come to a full stop at a stop sign at the corner of U.S. 1 and Burton Drive, according to the arrest report.
Hernandez walked up to the vehicle, and he said he smelled a “strong odor” of marijuana coming from inside.
The 19-year-old driver and Snow said there were no drugs in the car. Two girls, ages 15 and 16, were in the back seat. Deputies searched the car and found no drugs.
They did find a box of Miller Lite beer and a bottle of Malibu rum. One of the girls said Snow bought the booze, and “she stated she felt pressure from Alexander to drink the Malibu,” Hernandez wrote in his report.
She also told deputies “Alexander asked multiple times if they wanted to drive to Marathon to get a hotel there,” according to Hernandez. Snow told police he bought the beer, but not the rum, and that the girls did not drink any of it.
Snow denied pressuring the girls to drink or go to Marathon with him. He said the driver knew the girls and offered them a ride home.
“It’s just my luck to get pulled over in the time it took to take the girls home,” Snow said.
Snow said he was in Key Largo because he and his friend were thinking about driving to Miami. He has only been in the Keys for about a month and “was tired of sitting at home.”
Deputies checked Snow’s Missouri ID and found out he was a registered sex offender. He also did not register with the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles and Highway Safety to obtain a driver’s license that labels him a sex offender, as required by law, according to Hernandez.
According to the Missouri State Highway Patrol Sex Offender Registry, Snow was convicted of molesting a 14-year-old girl in 2016. Snow said he was dating the girl when he was a senior in high school and she was a freshman.
“It was a high school relationship that I have to pay for for the rest of my life,” he said.
Snow was released from county jail on Sunday of $6,500. The driver was released by police at the scene, and the girls’ parents picked them up, according to sheriff’s office spokesman Adam Linhardt.
This story was originally published December 10, 2018 at 1:27 PM.
