Angel Marie Sexton, the 27-year-old Palm Coast woman charged with molesting a 13-year-old boy over Christmas 2024, has pleaded guilty to the charge and will serve six years in prison followed by nine years of sex-offender probation when Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols sentences her on Jan. 20.
Sexton is married to the cousin of the boy’s father. The boy’s family was visiting from Kentucky. She engaged in sexual acts with the boy, who said the acts were unsolicited. Sexton, a resident of Palm Coast’s R-Section, told Flagler County Sheriff’s detectives that he had made advances on her. She faced a second-degree felony charge of statutory rape, with a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.
According to the sheriff’s investigation, Sexton made advances to the boy on two occasions, in one case engaging in sex with him behind a shed at the R-Section property, and a few days later attempting by various means to engage in further acts, but unsuccessfully. She told the boy that he could be legally emancipated at 16, and that she would leave her husband to be with him.
Texts between Sexton and the boy, and later, statements by Sexton to detectives, provided the evidence for the case against her. Whether the boy had initiated or encouraged the acts is irrelevant, since Sexton did not resist the advances. Under Florida law, a 13-year-old cannot consent to sexual acts with an adult. The boy’s mother had reported the allegations to law enforcement after discovering text threads on a phone. The boy then provided a detailed written narrative of the incidents. He “reported having reprimanded Angel numerous times throughout the course of his stay at [the Royal Oak Drive house] for her inappropriate behavior towards him,” the investigation states, “as well as explicitly telling her he did not want her to continue attempting such behavior.”
The plea was negotiated between Assistant State Attorney Melissa Clark and Assistant Public Defender Courtney Davison. It was tendered before Nichols in December, who accepted it, though the terms of the plea were not public at the time. “Just for the record, I did have discussions with the victim’s family, and they’re in agreement with the plea agreement,” Clark said.
Sexton has almost two months’ credit for time served at the Flagler County jail before she posted bail on $25,000 bond. She appeared before Nichols for the plea hearing on Dec. 17. She could have been sentenced on that day and begun her prison term then. The judge agreed to let her spend the holidays with her family, and report back to court on Jan. 20.
“Don’t show up high. That sounds like common sense, but you would be surprised,” the judge cautioned Sexton. “And don’t pick up any new law violations if you can abide by those terms, you and I are going to be in good shape, right? You violate, the plea sticks, but the court could sentence you to more, and I really don’t want to do that.”
Sexton will also be designated a sex offender for life. For the duration of the nine years of probation, she will have to abide by a mandatory curfew from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. or any other eight-hour period designated by the court should Sexton’s employment coincide with night hours. She will be prohibited from living near schools and any other place where children gather, or working or volunteering in such places, and will be prohibited from having contact with anyone younger than 18 without court-approved supervision, or access to the internet pending a risk assessment and a safety plan. She’ll also have to submit to regular lie-detector tests and warrantless searches and keep a driving log. She’ll be required to regularly register her living situation with law enforcement, and when she moves.
In an unrelated case, Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies on Jan. 9 arrested Stephen Nicholas Caputo, a 22-year-old resident of 22 Riddle Place in Palm Coast, on a second-degree felony charge of exhibitionism by an adult toward a minor, following a Dec. 26 incident when he allegedly exposed himself to a 14-year-old girl while she was walking on Rickenbacker Drive in Palm Coast’s R-Section.
Caputo said he had decided to masturbate in his car and decided to engage with the girl for “extra scenery,” he told sheriff’s deputies.
According to the girl, Caputo pulled up to her in a black Kia hatchback, exposed himself and “was making movements consistent with a lewd sexual act while seated inside the vehicle,” his arrest report states, referring to masturbation. Caputo allegedly drove around and returned alongside the girl and spoke to her suggestively. The girl, frightened, fled to a house on Rickenbacker to seek help.
Video surveillance from Rickenbacker Drive houses helped detectives identify the incident and the Kia, whose license plate was identified. That led to the owners–not Caputo–in Palm Coast’s P Section, though records showed deputies that on Dec. 11, Caputo had been involved in a vehicle crash involving the same Kia. He had been the driver. The car belongs to Caputo’s girlfriend and her mother. His girlfriend has medical issues and does not drive.
Caputo matched the description of the man the alleged victim had provided. But she could not positively identify him in a photo lineup. But Caputo himself confirmed the incident to sheriff’s deputies. He said he did not know that the girl was 14. On his second go-around he said he had asked the girl, “did you like it,” then driving, and finishing, off.
He now faces up to 15 years in prison, though is more likely, like Sexton, to resolve the case in a plea, with the negotiations centered on whether he is to be a designated sex offender or not. Similar cases have been resolved, at least with first-time offenders, with a reduction of the charge to felony child abuse, sparing the offender the lifetime designation.
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