On November 29, 2025, Jairo Zepeda-Herrera, 34, Cranbury, NJ, initiated a conversation on a social media app with what he believed to be a 13-year-old female.  He quickly expressed a romantic and sexual interest in the child despite her age.  He asked if she was a virgin, and when she stated that she was, he told her that he wanted to have sex with her and wanted her to lose her virginity with him.  He then discussed how they would meet to have sex in his car and gave her a date of December 30, 2025, while she was on Christmas break from middle school.

On December 30, 2025, Zepeda-Herrera traveled from his home in East Windsor, NJ, and arrived at the 13-year-old's home in Bensalem for a sexual encounter.  Police were nearby, but prior to making contact with him, Zepeda-Herrera fled the scene.  Bensalem Police obtained an arrest warrant charging Zepeda-Herrera with Attempted Statutory Sexual Assault, Unlawful Contact with Minors, Attempted Indecent Assault, Corruption of Minors, and related offenses.  No children were in danger during this investigation.

Attempts to serve the arrest warrant were unsuccessful until members of the US Marshals Service spoke to his family at his listed residence on Tuesday, March 3, 2026, about the active warrant.  On Wednesday, March 4, 2026, Jairo Zepeda-Herrera turned himself in at the Bensalem Township Police Department.

Jairo Zepeda-Herrera was arraigned by District Justice Joseph Falcone and remanded to the Bucks County Correctional Facility on 10% of $3,000,000 bail.  Bensalem Police have verified that Zepeda-Herrera is from Ecuador and entered the United States illegally.

Bensalem Police would like to thank the US Marshals for their assistance in removing this dangerous predator from the community.