Officials said that the FBI arrested the founder of a charity organisation that supports children with disabilities on Wednesday and accused her of sexually assaulting juveniles.
The Special Needs Advocacy Program (SNAP), which provides services to families and persons with disabilities in the Central Florida region, was established by James “Jamie” Grover. The FBI’s Tampa Field Office said on Thursday that the 62-year-old man had been taken into custody following searches of his Deltona residence and his place of employment, the Seminole Town Centre Mall in Sanford.
Grover’s detention hearing is scheduled for September 11 and he is presently being held at the Seminole County Jail.
“The FBI believes Grover targeted young boys between the timeframe of 2010 to the present while working at SNAP and while serving as Group Director of Autism on the Seas, an international organization that developed cruise vacations for adults and families living with special needs,” the FBI said.
A copy of the federal complaint against Grover submitted on Thursday to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida was made available to FOX 35 on Friday. In the allegation, Grover claimed to have sexually abused three minor victims at the beginning. At one point, all three kids offered to work for SNAP.
The three boys claimed in their complaint that Grover took pictures of them in their pants, suggested they could make money doing pornography and encouraged them to masturbate in front of him. In addition, Grover is accused of grabbing a child’s buttocks, teaching a guy how to shave his crotch area, performing oral sex on one of the minors four times, and frequently giving out cigarettes and vape pens.
Grover allegedly forced the cabin beds together and engaged in additional sexual actions with the two teenagers, who were 16 and 15 years old at the time, during two different cruises departing from Port Canaveral in 2023, according to the complaint.
Grover allegedly gave the teenagers the impression that coming out would make them appear “crazy.”
“If you tell anyone your family won’t believe you cause you are an autistic child,” Grover allegedly said to one of the victims, according to the complaint.
When Grover was questioned by an FBI Special Agent in July, the lawsuit states, he denied having ever sexually abused any girls and asserted that the kids were just inventing these claims because they “wanted attention.” A second victim, according to Grover, “is not an honest person and has a history of lying,” and he thought it strange that two teenagers were coming forward at the same time.
After searching Grover’s residence and place of business on Wednesday, authorities discovered a tablet containing pornography and the razor that was reportedly used to shave a juvenile victim. That day, he was brought into custody.
According to the FBI, additional of Grover’s purported victims are being sought for. Go to www.fbi.gov/snapvictims if you or your child think they may have been Grover’s victim, or if you have any information about this case. The identities of all victims shall remain private.
FOX 35 has requested a statement from SNAP but has not yet received a response.
