FLAGLER COUNTY, Fla. – A registered sexual predator was arrested less than 12 hours after his release from state prison after he failed to report to probation and walked to the Palm Coast home where he had previously victimized children, the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office said.
Gabriel Pardo, 45, was released from a Florida state correctional facility and dropped off at a bus stop on State Road 100 in Flagler Beach at about 10:17 p.m. on June 18. He was fitted with a GPS ankle monitor and was required to report to the Florida Department of Corrections probation and parole office in Bunnell at 8 a.m. the next morning.
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When Pardo did not check in, his monitor showed he had walked more than six miles from the bus stop to the home where he committed earlier sex offenses — roughly 10 miles from the probation office, authorities said.
Probation officers alerted Flagler County detectives early June 19, and Major Case detectives working with the Real Time Crime Center used the monitor data to track and locate Pardo walking on Old Kings Road, the sheriff’s office said. Detectives said there is no indication he entered the residence or made contact with anyone there; they later determined the victims no longer live at that location.
“This pervert, convicted rapist, pedophile and predator couldn’t even make it one night out of prison before he attempted to contact the victims he assaulted,” Sheriff Rick Staly said. “Thanks to his ankle monitor and the fast work of our detectives and parole officers, his first day of freedom ended behind bars.”
Pardo is a registered sexual predator in a 2018 case in which he repeatedly sexually abused two children in his care over several years and molested a third child during a sleepover, the sheriff’s office said. In 2019 he pleaded no contest and was found guilty of two counts of sexual battery by a custodian of a victim older than 12 and younger than 18 and one count of sexual battery. He was sentenced to eight years in state prison followed by 15 years of sex-offender probation; Thursday marked the first night of that probation term.
Deputies arrested Pardo on a violation of probation charge and transported him to the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility, where he is being held without bond, the sheriff’s office said.