A Queens school van driver has been charged with initiating and conducting an ongoing sexually explicit conversations with a person he had met online and who he believed to be a 14-year-old girl, but in actuality she was a NYPD undercover detective assigned to the Vice Enforcement Division.
Elliot B. Provda, a 38-year-old Manhattan man, whose job includes driving six children – ranging in age from six to thirteen – to school in a private mini-van, has been charged with first-degree attempted dissemination of indecent material to minors and attempted endangering the welfare of a child.
Provda, an independent delivery man, was hired by several parents to pick up their children and drop them off at a private religious school in Manhattan.
According to the charges, an NYPD vice detective was operating in his undercover persona as a 14-year-old girl from Queens on multiple occasions between October 1, 2013, and December 4, 2013, during which time he allegedly received numerous instant messages from Provda, who used the screen name EBP212@AOL.com. Provda’s messages were allegedly graphic and sexual in nature and included an invitation to meet for sexual activity in Queens.
He was arrested after police executed a court-authorized search warrant at his residence and recovered the cell phone whose number he had allegedly provided to the undercover vice detective in his instant messages.
He faces up to four years in prison if convicted, was ordered held on bail and will return to court on December 23, 2013.
By Samantha Geary
