Paul Newport, 51, of Cape Coral, was sentenced to 10 years in prison today on a Violation of Probation charge on a 2016 case for Traveling to Meet a Minor. Newport admitted to the violation.
The sentence will be served concurrently with his sentence of 10 years in prison he received on June 6, 2019 for a 2018 case in which he entered a plea of no contest and was charged with one count each of Traveling to Meet a Minor and Battery on a Law Enforcement Officer. Newport was adjudicated guilty.
Newport thought he was messaging a juvenile online and arranged to meet him but it was an undercover sheriff’s deputy. When he arrived at the home in Fort Myers thinking he was meeting a child, Newport was taken into custody. As deputies processed Newport, he tried to make a run for it and entered a bedroom of the home. He grabbed a life-like sculpture of a swordfish and took the long bill of the fish and tried to stab himself. Deputies intervened and the defendant used the swordfish sculpture as a weapon and hit a deputy in the face before he was handcuffed. Newport was arrested by the Lee County Sheriff’s Office as part of a sting operation to stop child predators.
Assistant State Attorney Lindsay Scott of our Special Victims Unit handled the cases.
Samantha Syoen
Communications Director
State Attorney’s Office
ssyoen@sao20.org
239-533-1125