Mitchell Allen Kennedy, son of prominent Cape founders of BackOffice Associates, was also cited in Cape car accident early Sunday.

BREWSTER — The son of a prominent family in the Cape Cod business community, who police say on Sunday left the scene of a crash on Route 137, had been arrested last month in Georgia during a sting intended to reduce sex with minors around the time of Super Bowl LIII.

Mitchell Allen Kennedy, 24, was among 21 men arrested over a five-day period starting Jan. 30 in the area of Brookhaven, Georgia, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The men were each charged with computer or electronic pornography, or trafficking of a person for labor or sexual servitude, or both, according to a statement from the agency.

Kennedy, of Brooklyn, New York, and Brewster, was arrested Feb. 3 — the day of the Super Bowl in Atlanta — on a charge of computer pornography for an alleged incident the day before in Brookhaven. He was booked at the DeKalb County Sheriff's Office in Decatur, Georgia, and released the same day after posting an $11,200 bond, according to Cynthia Baugh Williams, a spokeswoman for the sheriff's office. A police report on the incident was not immediately available.

The goal of “Operation Interception” was to arrest individuals who communicate with children online, have sexually explicit conversations, and then travel to meet them for the purpose of having sex, the agency statement says. During the operation, investigators said they had close to 200 exchanges with subjects on various social media or internet platforms.

Kennedy, who has recently moved to Brewster from New York, was at a hotel at the time of the incident in Georgia and did not travel from the hotel to meet anyone for sex, according to his mother, Patricia Kennedy, who spoke with a reporter Sunday at her Brewster home.

Although her son had been with her earlier in the day Sunday, he was not present during the interview.

“Mitchell did nothing wrong,” Patricia Kennedy said about the Georgia arrest. “He never left the hotel.”

Her son had begun a career in sales in Brooklyn in the solar panel industry at the time of his arrest in Georgia, she said.

In their statement, Georgia law enforcement officials listed him as living in Brooklyn and employed as a software company creative assistant.

“I believe in the end that those charges will actually be dismissed,” Patricia Kennedy said about the allegations against her son. “We believe that it was a very large operation that he got caught up in, that he wasn’t who they were looking for. It was circumstances beyond his control that he got brought into it.”

The Super Bowl was held at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. The New England Patriots beat the Los Angeles Rams 13-3 in the championship game. Patricia and Thomas Kennedy’s app development company — Harwich-based Zudy — is a major sponsor of the Patriots, an organization dealing with its own sex-related scandal after owner Robert Kraft was charged last month with soliciting prostitution at a Florida spa. On the day of the Super Bowl and hours before her son was arrested, Patricia Kennedy spoke about how much she admired the Patriots in a video posted to the company's Facebook page.

“I model Zudy after that, I model my own personal life after that and when I met those guys the first time, I met some players, I met Mr. Kraft, I was absolutely stunned at just the authenticity that they bring, the originality that they bring to the thoughts of how to organize things, how to be successful, to be competitive, how to win,” she said in the video.

In a Feb. 6 post on the company's Facebook page, Patricia Kennedy is shown posing with Kraft for a photo.

Before the Super Bowl, there were heavy media campaigns focused on deterring individuals who want to purchase sex with a minor, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Additionally, law enforcement, non-profit organizations and victims’ services organizations sought to educate the public and various industries about the indicators of human trafficking.

Police also set up 50 license plate readers to identify previously identified individuals connected to the investigation as soon as they entered the city, according to the agency.

The Georgia Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force conducts undercover operations throughout the state periodically, said Debbie Garner, who is head of the task force and a special agent in charge of child exploitation and computer crimes with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Each operation takes about 60 people so the choice of where to conduct the operation is based, in part, on the availability of agencies such as the Brookhaven Police Department to help, Garner said. The choice of Brookhaven, a city northeast of Atlanta, was also due to its proximity to the Super Bowl stadium, she said. The police department is about 7 miles from the stadium.

“Child sex trafficking and prostitution increases during major events,” Garner said.

Teens who are 16 and 17 and already involved in that way of life are brought to Atlanta, she said.

“We were concentrating on the demand side of that,” Garner said.

Law enforcement officers involved in Operation Interception used a number of different apps, Garner said.

“I don’t recall which one we met him on,” she said of Mitchell Allen Kennedy.

Kennedy, who is a graduate of Nauset Regional High School and Baruch College in New York, was also the driver of a car that hit a tree early Sunday on Route 137 at Villages Drive in Brewster, Patricia Kennedy said Sunday. Brewster police issued a citation to Kennedy after they went to the scene of the crash but found the vehicle with its airbags deployed and no driver.

He was issued two traffic citations and a criminal citation for leaving the scene of a crash. He had walked to his brother’s apartment when no one drove by to help, his mother said.

“He certainly shouldn’t have left the scene,” Patricia Kennedy said. “It was cold and there was no one there, and he left his phone at his brother’s apartment.”

Her son was not injured in the crash, she said.

Patricia and Thomas Kennedy have been on the Cape since 1997, starting the successful high-tech company BackOffice Associates in Orleans before moving it to Harwich and then selling the business in 2012. The husband and wife team co-founded Zudy in 2014.

In 2017, Zudy, which helps users build applications on the internet and mobile devices, moved into the Harwich building previously occupied by BackOffice Associates. At the time, the company announced it would add 350 jobs to its payroll, with 100 jobs on Cape Cod.

The company has a close relationship with the Patriots and has been a fixture since 2015 on background advertising at post-game press conferences featuring the likes of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.

In 2016, Zudy partnered with the team to sponsor “Tackling Tech,” a column on the team’s website about technology for sports and sports fans.

Last month, Kraft was among hundreds of men charged in a crackdown on massage parlor prostitution and an investigation into human trafficking at Florida spas. He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of misdemeanor solicitation of prostitution.

While Kraft’s involvement in the Florida case — which has no outward connection to the Georgia investigation — has garnered the greatest attention, it has also highlighted an issue — prostitution and sex trafficking — that many experts say is pervasive.

Kraft’s family also owns multiple properties on Popponesset Island in Mashpee and has donated to various Cape Cod organizations and causes.

— Follow on Mary Ann Bragg: @MaryAnnBraggCCT