ST. GEORGE — St. George Police officers converged on a parking lot at Dixie State University Friday to apprehend a man suspected of trying to lure girls into his car two days earlier.
Police found Jeffrey Duston Lambert outside the George S. Eccles fitness center and detained him for questioning.
Several officers had been searching locations around town for the previous 24 hours in an extensive effort by The Special Enforcement and Patrol divisions.
Lambert, 41, was reported by parents trying to lure a small group of 12- to 13-year-old girls into his car with candy sticks Wednesday afternoon.
Lambert, who has several previous criminal convictions including criminal mischief and theft, was arrested and booked into the Purgatory Correctional Facility at 11:28 a.m. on one class B misdemeanor count of threat of violence, one class B misdemeanor for drug possession and one class B misdemeanor for paraphernalia.
A Facebook post on Friday afternoon by the St. George Police Department stated that Lambert would be charged with disorderly conduct, terroristic threats, reckless driving, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of marijuana.
According to several Facebook posts circulating from parents and friends of the girls involved in the incident, Lambert was in the process of trying to entice the girls to a nearby party with candy sticks when he was interrupted by a mother picking up the group to take them home.
Upon being discovered by the parent, Lambert allegedly punched the hood of her car, screamed assorted expletives and threw the candy at her before being caught on camera by one of the girls as they drove away.
The original post also indicated that the candy may have been laced with lethal amounts of fentanyl, but officer Tiffany Atkin said there has never been a confirmed case in St. George of candy sticks being laced with the drug.
The department’s Facebook post confirmed that no fentanyl was added to the ones from Lambert.
The post adds:
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Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in court of law and this report may not contain all of the facts.
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THANKS SGPD for taking this SCUM off the street. Throw the book at him with what you can!
Not enough evidence to get him on some kind of luring charge? None of those charges are enough to get him any serious time. I won’t be surprised if we see him plastered on the news for raping an underage girl some time from now, unless these charges are enough to scare some sense into him. Hard to say. Blame the drugs?
Obviouly, the MJ isnt working.
This was a great catch by the hard working SPD! I hope they can dig deep into this creeps history and dig up some felonies to keep him off the streets for a long long time!
Jeffrey Duston Lambert sounds like the most dangerous sort of criminal who will reoffend again if given the chance, it’s only a matter of time. Vulnerable children are in jeopardy so we need to make sure, Jeffrey Duston Lambert does not have any access to our kids.
Jeffrey Duston Lambert. The community is watching you.