Trevor Lyons told the dad he would like to speak with his 12-year-old daughter, saying, “I’d love to see how much of a freak she is,” according to court documents. Lyons is accused of then adding the daughter as a friend on Discord and asking her if she would perform sex acts on him. The agent, meanwhile, was secretly controlling both accounts.

Lyons, 41, was arrested Monday and is accused of producing and distributing child pornography from around May 2020 to December 2024.

A federal grand jury charged him in a nine-count felony indictment with sexual exploitation, attempted sexual exploitation of a child to produce sexually explicit visuals, attempted enticement of a minor to engage in criminal sexual activity, and distribution of child pornography.

If convicted as charged, he faces a maximum sentence of life behind bars.

The undercover agent began exchanging messages with Lyons in a group chat on the Kik messaging app in August 2024, when the agent posed as a 43-year-old man with the username “UC Dad,” according to the indictment.

Lyons allegedly told UC Dad that he had a 17-year-old daughter of his own and asked UC Dad how old his daughter was. When UC Dad said 12, Lyons responded, “Oooof. A tad young but do you have pics? I have pics from when mine was 15,” according to the indictment.

Lyons continued to have conversations of a sexual nature with UC Dad on Telegram that month, according to the indictment.

On Sept. 9, 2024, Lyons allegedly added the girl as a friend on Discord and then asked her age, to which the undercover agent responded, “12.”

He told her he was 40 and asked if she liked older guys and whether she had seen a penis before, the indictment said. The conversation continued to escalate.

He asked if she had performed oral sex and offered to teach her, the indictment said. He also sent an explicit photo and video before asking her to perform oral sex on him, according to the indictment.

On Dec. 17, 2024, law enforcement officers seized a Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4, an iPhone 16 and an iPad 3 from Lyons.

The indictment, which was filed in August, details a long record of child pornography allegedly distributed by Lyons as well as a May 2020 incident in which he is accusing of coercing a minor to engage in sexually explicit acts for photos that would be distributed as pornography. According to the indictment, he used a variety of usernames online, including Carly, Herbdoc and DeFi Samurai.

Lyons was arrested by the FBI’s Ventura Child Exploitation Human Trafficking Task Force, a collaboration between the FBI and regional law enforcement agencies to rescue minor victims and investigate and arrest those involved in child exploitation and human trafficking. The task force recently arrested six additional people in Ventura County during a two-week operation in August targeting the production, distribution and possession of child sexual abuse material.

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A Los Angeles assistant principal was arrested Friday on suspicion of molesting eight young children while working at a Santa Paula elementary school several years ago, authorities said.

David Lane Braff Jr., 42, of Thousand Oaks is accused of molesting eight students ages 6 to 10 in a school office at McKevett Elementary School, where he worked as a counselor from 2015 to 2019, according to the Ventura County district attorney’s office. At the time of his arrest, Braff was an assistant principal and school counselor at Ingenium Charter Middle School in Winnetka, prosecutors said.

He has been charged with 17 felony counts of lewd acts upon a child under 14 years old and will be arraigned Monday in Ventura County Superior Court, prosecutors said.

He is being held in Ventura County jail on $3-million bail, prosecutors said.

“The defendant is alleged to have molested multiple elementary school children over a number of years, shattering the trust placed in him by parents, educators and the public,” Ventura County Dist. Atty. Erik Nasarenko said in a statement. “We intend to vigorously prosecute this case and encourage others to come forward who may have information about additional victims and crimes.”

The district attorney’s office and the Santa Paula Police Department launched an investigation into Braff last month, and that effort continues. Prosecutors believe that Braff has worked at other schools in Southern California and may have been a volunteer for youth organizations.

Anyone who believes they may have been victimized, or who witnessed suspicious conduct, is encouraged to contact Greg Webb, an investigator at the Ventura County district attorney’s office, at (805) 477-1627, regardless of whether the incident occurred in Ventura County.

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Northwest of Los Angeles, the Mountain Fire exploded in size and prompted evacuation orders for more than 10,000 people as it threatened 3,500 structures in suburban communities, ranches and agricultural areas around Camarillo, according to a statement from Gov. Gavin Newsom. He said he has requested federal assistance for the area east of the Pacific coast city of Ventura.

The blaze was burning in a region that has seen some of California’s most destructive fires over the years. A thick plume of smoke rose hundreds of feet into the sky Wednesday, blanketing whole neighborhoods and limiting visibility for firefighters and evacuees. The fire grew from less than half of a square mile to 16 square miles (62 square kilometers) in little more than five hours.

Ventura County Fire Captain Trevor Johnson described crews racing with their engines to homes threatened by the flames to save lives.

“This is as intense as it gets. The hair on the back of the firefighters’ neck I’m sure was standing up,” he said during a news conference Wednesday afternoon.

Two people suffered apparent smoke inhalation and were taken to hospitals, fire officials said. No firefighters reported significant injuries.

The erratic winds and limited visibility grounded fixed-wing aircraft, and gusts topped 61 mph (98 kph), said weather service meteorologist Bryan Lewis. Water-dropping helicopters were still flying.

First responders pleaded with residents to evacuate. Deputies made contact with 14,000 people to urge them to leave as embers spread up to 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) away and sparked new flames.

“This fire is moving dangerously fast,” Ventura County Fire Chief Dustin Gardner said.

Aerial footage from local television networks showed dozens of homes in flames across several neighborhoods as embers were whipped from home to home. Other footage captured horses trotting alongside evacuating vehicles.

Jade Katz, who said she is disabled and does not drive, waited for a friend to pick her up near her Camarillo Heights home with a suitcase full of medication and Bella, her Great Dane service dog. But the friend couldn’t reach her, so first responders sent a squad car to escort her to safety as she watched the neighborhood burn.

Officials said they were using all resources, including water-dropping helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft dropping fire retardant, but it was still burning out of control Wednesday afternoon. Andrew Dowd, a Ventura County fire spokesperson, said he did not have details of how many structures had been damaged.

Gus Garcia, who owns a ranch south of the fire, said he’s waiting to see whether conditions will change to decide if he should evacuate his horses and cattle. Around 12:30 p.m., his animals were still safe and he was trying to stay out of the way as others got their livestock out.

His ranch is surrounded by others with horses and alpaca, and Garcia said his neighbors in the canyon did not seem panicked.

“The horse community, they prepare for this because it’s always a possibility up here,” he said.

Meanwhile to the south, Los Angeles County Fire Department crews scrambled to contain a wildfire near Malibu’s Broad Beach as authorities briefly shut down the Pacific Coast Highway as flames burned near multimillion-dollar properties. Residents were urged to shelter in place while aircraft dropped water on the 50-acre (20-hectare) Broad Fire. It was 15% contained around 12:30 p.m. with forward progress stopped. Fire officials said two structures burned.

The National Weather Service office for the Los Angeles area amended its red flag warning for increased fire danger with a rare “particularly dangerous situation” label, and officials in several counties urged residents to be on watch for fast-spreading blazes, power outages and downed trees amid the latest round of notorious Santa Ana winds.

With predicted gusts between 50 mph (80 kph) and 100 mph (160 kph) and humidity levels as low as 8%, parts of Southern California could experience conditions ripe for “extreme and life-threatening” fire behavior into Thursday, the weather service said.

Forecasters also issued red flag warnings until Thursday from California’s central coast through the San Francisco Bay Area and into counties to the north, where strong winds were also expected.

Utilities in California began powering down equipment during high winds and extreme fire danger after a series of massive and deadly wildfires in recent years were sparked by electrical lines and other infrastructure. On Wednesday, more than 65,000 customers in Southern California were without power preventatively, and upwards of 20,000 in Northern California.

Wednesday’s fires were burning in the same areas of other recent destructive fires, including the 2018 Woolsey Fire, which killed three people and destroyed 1,600 homes near Los Angeles, and the the 2017 Thomas Fire, which destroyed more than a thousand homes and other structures in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. Southern California Edison has paid tens of millions of dollars to settle claims after its equipment was blamed for both blazes.

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The abnormal scarcity — compounded by the region’s long-running underproduction of housing — emerged when homeowners chose not to sell and give up pandemic-era mortgage rates. The so-called seller strike helped pushed home values to new records, despite rising borrowing costs.

Now the inventory picture might be changing.

“It’s getting a little bit better,” said Eneida Contreras, a Compass real estate agent who specializes in the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys.

In April, the number of homes listed for sale in most Southern California counties rose from the same month a year earlier, according to data from Zillow.

Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties turned positive for the first time since the first half of 2023, each recording an increase of at least 5%.

Orange was the only county to see a decline, while in San Diego, inventory has risen for two consecutive months and is 18% above what it was a year ago.

To be sure, the availability of homes remains at historically low levels. But as it rises, it opens the possibility that prospective buyers will have an easier time making the largest purchase of their lives.

Jordan Levine, chief economist with the California Assn. of Realtors, said more homes are coming onto the market because owners are increasingly accepting that the new normal is interest rates in the 6%-7% range.

As people get married, divorced and have children, the “benefit of the low rate starts to be outweighed by having a house that doesn’t work,” Levine said. “Ultimately, these are people’s homes, too, and they are not just straight-up investments.”

Levine said he expects inventory levels to increase and home prices to be lower than they would have been if inventory continued to shrink. However, he and other experts said home prices are unlikely to decline. That’s because though more owners are coming to terms with high rates, many will likely choose to keep their sub-4% mortgages — a phenomenon known as the lock-in effect.

Other factors are at play. The economy is growing, and while most Southern California households can’t afford to buy, there’s a sizable population of techies, Hollywood types and other white-collar workers who can funnel excess cash into large down payments that offset high mortgage rates.

“The current level of inventory rise — which is a little bit, but not a lot — is likely to slow price appreciation but not turn it negative,” said Mike Simonsen, founder of Altos Research, a real estate data firm.

The rise in inventory is providing opportunities for buyers with means, but the market is still tough.

Interest rates are above 7%, and even if home prices rise at a slower pace, they will set records.

In Los Angeles County, the average home price in April was $890,516, an increase of 1.4% from March and surpassing the previous record, set in June 2022.

The six-county Southern California region climbed above its 2022 average home price record in March. It set another all-time high last month, reaching $875,388.

If mortgage rates noticeably decline, the lock-in effect could lessen and bring more homes onto the market. Falling mortgage rates would also immediately make housing more affordable.

Whether falling rates provide much relief is another question. Lower borrowing costs may bring a flood of additional buyers who quickly gobble up new listings and supercharge price growth.

“Building more housing is really what is going to break that cycle,” said Nicole Bachaud, a senior economist with Zillow.

According to the latest forecast from the Mortgage Bankers Assn., rates will remain high but will drop to 6.4% by the end of 2024.

Carol Otero of Rodeo Realty is among the Los Angeles agents seeing an increase in inventory. She estimated that the number of homes for sale in some San Fernando Valley neighborhoods has at least doubled in the past few weeks.

Buyers are eager.

Last Friday, Otero listed a four-bedroom home in Northridge. She said she has received six offers, all above the $869,000 asking price.

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