Police arrest man who allegedly tried to lure young girls with candy
ST. GEORGE — St. George Police officers converged on a parking lot at Dixie State University Friday to apprehend a man suspected of trying to lure girls into his car two days earlier.
Police found Jeffrey Duston Lambert outside the George S. Eccles fitness center and detained him for questioning.
Several officers had been searching locations around town for the previous 24 hours in an extensive effort by The Special Enforcement and Patrol divisions.
Lambert, 41, was reported by parents trying to lure a small group of 12- to 13-year-old girls into his car with candy sticks Wednesday afternoon.
Lambert, who has several previous criminal convictions including criminal mischief and theft, was arrested and booked into the Purgatory Correctional Facility at 11:28 a.m. on one class B misdemeanor count of threat of violence, one class B misdemeanor for drug possession and one class B misdemeanor for paraphernalia.
A Facebook post on Friday afternoon by the St. George Police Department stated that Lambert would be charged with disorderly conduct, terroristic threats, reckless driving, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of marijuana.
According to several Facebook posts circulating from parents and friends of the girls involved in the incident, Lambert was in the process of trying to entice the girls to a nearby party with candy sticks when he was interrupted by a mother picking up the group to take them home.
Upon being discovered by the parent, Lambert allegedly punched the hood of her car, screamed assorted expletives and threw the candy at her before being caught on camera by one of the girls as they drove away.
The original post also indicated that the candy may have been laced with lethal amounts of fentanyl, but officer Tiffany Atkin said there has never been a confirmed case in St. George of candy sticks being laced with the drug.
The department’s Facebook post confirmed that no fentanyl was added to the ones from Lambert.
The post adds:
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Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in court of law and this report may not contain all of the facts.
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