Council Bluffs Police arrested Thomas Benjamin Stone, a 30-year-old Des Moines resident, on charges of grooming, phone dissemination of obscene materials to a minor, and sexual exploitation of a minor. The arrest followed the completion of an online child predator operation designed to identify individuals seeking to exploit children. Stone is being held in the Pottawattamie County Jail on $25,000 bond.
Guardii's anti-grooming detection engine monitors direct messages for manipulation tactics, trust-building exchanges with minors, and coercive language patterns that precede sexual exploitation. Rather than relying on post-incident law enforcement stings, Guardii intercepts grooming attempts in real time across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Roblox and other platforms, alerting parents, schools or child-safety professionals before contact escalates to offline harm—preventing the abuse Stone is accused of before a child becomes a victim.
