When we were working on our January predator report, we noticed a concentration of sex offenders in and near Boca Chase. We finally got around to it, so here’s our report on the sex offenders in Boca Chase, Lakes at Boca Raton, and more.
Robert Trefz (68) lives in the appropriately named Hidden Valley subdivision of Boca Chase. The FDLE photo of him has terrible image quality which is not too reassuring.
The FDLE record shows a 2012 conviction for what appears to be possession of child pornography here in Palm Beach County. The arrest paperwork indicates he admitted to using special software to download files he knew contained child pornography.
It has always bothered us that part of the job of law enforcement is to watch the videos or view the photos to verify that it is child pornography. Of course it’s necessary for the investigation, but it’s still disturbing.
We do not see any prior criminal history for him, not even a traffic ticket. It looks like he received a 12-month jail sentence and then 10 years of probation, from which he was released in May of this year.
Kafai Chak (47) lives in the Harbour Landing subdivision of Lakes at Boca Raton. FDLE records indicate he was convicted of Aggravated Indecent Assault in Philadelphia back in 2006.
We see no prior history locally and we did not find any more information about him elsewhere.
Stephen Krogman (51) lives in Ladypalm Lane, one of the senior subdivisions of Boca Chase. The FDLE record indicates 2001 convictions in Broward for:
- Lewd/lascivious exhibition with a victim under age 16
- Molestation of a victim age 12-15
- Sexual battery of victim age 12-15
Broward records also show child pornography charges. The offense dates are listed as fall of 2000, when he would have been in his 30s.
While court records are not online, a Sun Sentinel article from the time indicates there was also an 8-year-old victim.
The girl told police officer Glenn Ritta that a man on a bicycle had masturbated in front of her
Krogman is also known at least to some extent as a videogame player. Read more on Reddit. We don’t see much other court history, but he had 3 traffic cases in Palm Beach County in 2018. He served about 7 years in prison from 2001 to 2008.
David Jeffrey Rosenthal (49) lives in the Sweetwater IV section of Boca Chase. He was convicted in Miami federal court in 2008 of receipt of child pornography and sentenced to 97 months in federal prison. He was released in 2014. According to the indictment he received several CDs containing kiddie porn by mail.
We see no local court history for him other than a stop sign ticket in 2017. Before his big case he had a few minor cases in Miami-Dade like loitering.
Christopher Nill (32) of the Impressions I subdivision was convicted of child pornography charges. The original offense date was 2013. He was convicted in 2015 and sentenced to 36 months, released in December of 2017. He is now on 5 years probation.
Update: According to the probable cause affidavit, PBSO investigators found that the IP address for Nill’s home address was used to access child pornography via the Gnutella network. A warrant search of the home found Nill’s laptop with child pornography on it.
Robert Pencook (62) lives across 441 in Boca Vista. He was convicted in 2005 on child pornography charges. The case is old so we can’t see all the details but it appears he was charged with several counts and took a plea deal with 5 years probation.
Michael Venditto (33) lives across the street from Pencook. Court records show he faced charges out of two separate incidents in 2011. His 2012 arrest led to significant media coverage for the Boca Raton cheerleading coach.
One of the charges was dropped. In that case he had been accused of having sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl. Court records do not show why the case was dropped, but it was dropped at the same time he took a plea deal in the other case.
In the second case he received a sentence of 5 years probation for sexual activity with a girl age 16 or 17 as part of that plea agreement.
Update: We now have the probable cause affidavit. The document is heavily redacted but we will do our best based on what we can see. The girl in question told police that Venditto, her cheerleading coach, had kissed her when she was 14 or 15. About a year later – we’re guessing she was 16 and that’s only a guess – he gave her a ride, stopped in a KFC parking lot, pulled the girl into the back seat with him and “penetrated her vagina with his penis.”
It is noteworthy that Venditto persistently denied the incident occurred, both in text messages and in a “controlled call” detectives set up between him and the girl. In that controlled call he denied having sex with her, saying that she “wanted to” and he “said no.”
From everything we’ve seen it appears Venditto had a pretty strong defense on both cases. Most likely he took a deal because losing at trial would have meant a substantial prison sentence.
Frederick Irizarry (50) of Boca Gardens was convicted in Broward County in 2002 for sexual abuse of a 12-year-old boy back in the 1980s.
His victim kept the secret until he was 26, as detailed in the Sun Sentinel. After finding out that Irizarry was not going to prison, the distraught victim killed himself. Irizarry was sentenced to 10 years probation. The most serious charges were dismissed due to the statute of limitations.
