OCALA — A 57-year-old registered sex offender was sentenced to life in federal prison after a jury convicted him of attempting to meet a 13-year-old for sexual activity, one of two men sentenced this week from the same Ocala undercover sting operation targeting online child predators.
United States District Judge Thomas P. Barber handed Trevor Hedge, 57, of Ocala, the life sentence after a federal jury found him guilty on March 3, 2026, of attempted enticement of a minor to engage in sexual activity and committing a felony offense involving a minor as a registered sex offender. United States Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe announced the sentencing.
Hedge is no stranger to the criminal justice system. He was convicted of first-degree sexual assault of a minor in 1993, making him a registered sex offender — a status that triggered the mandatory life sentence under federal law.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, in May 2025 the Ocala Police Department hosted an undercover operation aimed at apprehending individuals using the internet to exploit children. During the operation, a detective from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office posed online as a neglected 13-year-old child. Hedge messaged the detective and, after learning the purported age, engaged in a sexually explicit conversation in which he described his “addiction” to sexual activity with minors and told the detective he was “grooming” her. On May 22, 2025, Hedge arranged to meet the detective and was arrested by the Ocala Police Department when he arrived at a predetermined location to pick up the person he believed was a child.
The same undercover operation netted a second defendant. Cain Matias Godinez, 42, a Mexican national, was sentenced by Judge Barber to 20 years in federal prison followed by a lifetime term of supervised release for attempted enticement of a minor to engage in sexual activity. A federal jury found Matias Godinez guilty on March 5, 2026.
Court documents show that Matias Godinez messaged the same undercover detective, who in his case posed online as a 13-year-old prostitute. After learning the detective’s purported age, Matias Godinez engaged in a sexually explicit conversation, described the sexual activity he wanted to engage in, and discussed ways to ensure they would not get caught. On May 27, 2025, Matias Godinez traveled from Gainesville to Marion County to meet the detective and was arrested by the Marion County Sheriff’s Office when he arrived at the meeting location.
Both cases were investigated jointly by the Ocala Police Department, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, and federal partners. The FBI investigated the Hedge case, while Homeland Security Investigations assisted in the Matias Godinez prosecution. Assistant United States Attorney Sarah Janette Swartzberg prosecuted both cases.
The prosecutions were brought under Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse. The program marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children and to identify and rescue victims.
The sentences — life for a repeat sex offender and 20 years plus lifetime supervision for an illegal immigrant who traveled across counties to meet a child — reflect the severity federal prosecutors and judges in the Middle District of Florida are applying to online predator cases arising from local sting operations.
Matias Godinez will remain under federal supervised release for the rest of his life following his 20-year prison term. Hedge, barring a successful appeal, will die in federal custody.