A missing 17-year-old girl from Orange County was found safe on Monday (April 13) after Polk County detectives discovered her hiding in the closet of a registered sex offender’s home in Dundee, Florida. The man, Alexis Diaz-Toledo, age 30, was arrested on multiple charges following the incident, according to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office.

Detectives were alerted after Orange County deputies received a tip that a runaway teen might be with a man in Dundee, leading them to Diaz-Toledo’s residence on Shepard Avenue. When officers arrived, Diaz-Toledo denied knowing the girl’s whereabouts and initially refused to allow a search of his home. Detectives soon determined that Diaz-Toledo was violating sex offender registration requirements by failing to report two vehicles kept at his house, which gave them cause to search the property.

Inside the home, detectives found the missing girl hiding in Diaz-Toledo’s bedroom closet. She was safely returned to her family, though officials did not elaborate on how she ended up at the residence. As reported by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, Diaz-Toledo faces two counts of failure to comply with sex offender registration requirements, interfering with custody of a minor, sheltering a minor without notifying a parent, and providing false information to law enforcement during a missing person investigation.

Diaz-Toledo has been a registered sex offender since a 2014 conviction for lewd and lascivious battery involving a minor between 12 and 15 years old. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd emphasized the seriousness of the case, stating, "A 30-year-old male sex offender is not the kind of person you want giving a 17-year-old girl a place to stay. I can assure you that Alexis Diaz-Toledo did not have the missing juvenile’s best interests in mind. Suffice to say, we gave Alexis a place to stay for a while — at the Polk County Jail."

Diaz-Toledo remains in custody as of Wednesday (April 15), with no bond set.

Michael DelGiorno